The History of Krynn

The Age of Dreams

Volume 3

All Stories ©1984 TSR, Inc.

©2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC

A Hero’s Justice – First published December 2004

Firstborn – First published February 1991

The Kinslayer Wars – First published August 1991

Covenant of the Forge – First published February 1993

Hammer and Axe – First published July 1993

Cover and ebook design by Dead^Man

Cover pictures used for this collection are from various sources around the net. Sorry, most sites do not credit the original artists. Thank you for the wonderful art, whomever you all may be.

These ePub  and Mobi/K8  editions v1.0 by Dead^Man December 2012

First release December 2012

Table of Contents

Copyright

A Hero’s Justice (continued)

Firstborn

The Kinslayer Wars

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Covenant of the Forge

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Hammer and Axe

A Hero’s Justice

(continued)

Chapter 6

RAISING THE STANDARD

From a league away, Juramona was a heap of ashes. Ribbons of smoke rose from debris that had once been houses, halls, and places of commerce. As Tol’s party of five approached, still on foot (no horses having been found to speed their journey), frightened survivors fled. Kiya tried calling out reassurances, but no one listened.

Closer, the town’s charred ruins revealed worse sights. The smoldering piles contained not only burnt wood, shattered crockery, and twisted metal, but broken skulls and blackened bones. Not a dwelling was left standing.

Atop the motte, the highest point in town, stood the remains of the High House, the marshal’s home. Tol led his group up this hill. The going was slow and treacherous, as the way was impeded by heaps of charred timbers and broken masonry. The air shimmered with heat still rising from the ruins. They were forced to tear apart some obstacles and clamber over others. A slab of bricks gave way under Egrin, and only Kiya’s quick hands saved him from a nasty fall.

As they ascended, Tylocost held back from the labor. However, sharp words from Tol caused the elf to fall in beside Zala and help pull down a soot-stained length of Wall that barred their way.

The marshal’s dwelling had been reduced by fire to a great pile of blackened wreckage. Several chimneys still stood, silent sentinels above rubble too chaotic to cross. Backs aching, all of them stained head to toe with ash, Tol and his companions turned to look out over the gutted town.

Egrin’s face was pale beneath its smears of soot, and he fought to control his feelings. At his side, Kiya laid an unusually gentle hand on his shoulder. The forester woman did not share the same deep connection to Juramona, but it had been the site of her first home with Tol and Miya.

Zala dropped wearily onto a cracked slab of slate, once part of the hall floor in the High House, Tylocost tried to clean his hands in a small puddle of muddy water. Giving up, he sat down to rest near the half-elf.

Tol rooted in the debris until he found a long wooden pole, reasonably intact. From his bedroll he withdrew a large piece of scarlet cloth, the mantle he’d once worn as an imperial general.

None of the others could fathom his purpose, so they watched in exhausted silence as Tol tied the corners of his mantle to the pole and furled it tight. He shouldered it and entered the precarious jumble that had been the High House. Burned timbers snapped under his feet, and gouts of ash flew up every time something gave way. As he broke through the outer crust of cinders, fresh plumes of smoke poured out. When one pile shifted, throwing him dangerously off-balance, Egrin shouted a warning, but Tol kept going.

“For a lord and general, this Tolandruth seems careless,” Zala remarked. She’d tied a length of cloth around her head to hold her sweaty hair out of her eyes.

Tylocost shaded his close-set eyes from the morning sun. “Spoken like a hireling,” he said. “I believe he means to send a message.”

That was indeed Tol’s plan. He planted the pole on the highest point in the ruins. The breeze caught his mantle, setting its red folds to flapping. With a cape from the empire that had dishonored him, Tol had created a flag of Ergothian crimson. Anyone passing within sight of Juramona would know the empire still held sway.

When Tol was back with his comrades again, Kiya warned, “Your flag may draw a swarm of nomads.”

He shrugged, “If so, all they’ll find are a few humble peasants, who know nothing about warriors or flags.”

The trip back down to level ground was accomplished more quickly since they’d already cleared a path. When they arrived, they found a small group gathered to greet them. Eight Juramonans – three men, four women, and a small child – covered in soot and ashes, hailed them. All but one sported crude bandages on their heads or limbs.

The sight of Tol drew a shriek from one of the women. “It’s him!” she shouted. “It’s Lord Tolandruth! Praise Mishas, it’s Lord Tolandruth!”

One of the men, a middle-aged fellow with saber cuts on his shoulders, flung himself at Tol’s feet.

“My lord!” he gasped. “We prayed, and you have come!”

Tol raised the injured man to his feet. “Far too late, my friend.”

The woman who’d recognized him pushed forward. “It matters little, my lord! You’re here. Now the savages will learn what retribution truly means!” Her lust for revenge was reflected on the faces of the other survivors.

Tol and his comrades shared what food and water they had with the destitute townsfolk. The lone uninjured man, a young fellow with sharp features and darting eyes, sidled up to Zala.

“Water’s for horses. Care for wine?” he whispered.

“Where are you going to get wine in these ruins?” she demanded, keeping her voice low, too.

He laid a finger aside his nose and assumed a knowing expression. “Things below ground survived. May I show you?”

She accepted his offer. Leering, he took her hand and led her away. Kiya saw them going and would have spoken, but Zala warned her off with a brief shake of her head and a lift of her dark brows. The Dom-shu woman shrugged and said nothing.

The sharp fellow’s name was Artan. With many blandishments about her beauty and wit, and hints at the concealed riches of Juramona, he led Zala through the ruins. After several twists and turns (designed mainly to confuse her, she decided), they passed a makeshift corral containing three horses. Zala planted her feet, yanking him to a halt, and asked about the animals.

“They belonged to nomads who lost their way in the ruins.” He drew a finger across his throat. “They won’t be claiming them.”

Next thing he knew, Zala’s sword point was at his chin. He sputtered and demanded an explanation.

Zala’s smile was deceptively sweet. “We’re going back to the others. I’m sure Lord Tolandruth will want to thank you for your patriotic donation of horses to his cause.”

Artan found himself marched back to the others. He went sprawling when Zala kicked his feet out from under him. Sheathing her sword, she explained what she’d found.

While Artan was forced to lead Tylocost, Kiya, and Zala to his cache of food, Tol and Egrin went to fetch the horses.

Typical plains ponies, the three animals had short legs, thick bodies, and could run all day without tiring. Egrin pronounced them sound.

“We were due for a piece of luck,” Tol said, stroking one horse’s shaggy brown flank.

Soon they heard Kiya’s shrill whistle. Their comrades were returning, laden with casks of wine. Artan bore a pair of smoked hams. The others carried packets of dried beef, small kegs of flour, and baskets of dried fruit. As much as the discovery of the horses, the sight of the food lifted Tol’s heart. Food was a vital ingredient in his plan. Townsmen and farm folk would be wandering the countryside, searching for victuals. He meant to draw them to the ruined town by feeding them, then enlist them to defend the empire.

Now they were all together again, Tol revealed the plan he’d been formulating.

“It’s plain that we cannot rely on the emperor to save the eastern provinces. We must save ourselves, but we need fighting men, warriors.”

Kiya noted they were a little short on such just now, and Tol said, “That’s why you and Egrin are going to go and find some.”

Egrin knew the rural warlords of the Eastern Hundred well. He had served with them on many campaigns under emperors Pakin II, Pakin III, and Ackal IV. All had sworn fealty to him when he was installed as marshal of the province. He would take one horse and ride east, visiting the large estates and smaller holdings, rallying the gentry. These landed hordes so mistrusted by Emperor Ackal V would form the backbone of Tol’s new army.

Another of the ponies was to be Kiya’s. Despite her protestations, she was heading to Hylo.

Egrin was still not convinced the kender would be of any use. Tol reminded him and Kiya of how few choices they had.

“You might be surprised what kender can do.”

Unpleasant thoughts of the havoc kender could wreak continued to bedevil Egrin, but he didn’t argue the point further. Instead, he asked, “Will you be all right here, alone?”

Tol smiled a little. “Not so alone. Tylocost’s loyalty is guaranteed by his oath.”

“And the huntress?”

“I’ve nothing to fear from her. She’s charged with delivering me alive to Daltigoth.”

During the journey to Juramona, Zala had tried to convince Tol to go directly to Daltigoth. He assured her it was his ultimate destination, but he had no intention of walking alone into Ackal’s capital city. He would explain no further, and she’d finally stopped hounding him, but neither man believed she’d given up.

“I don’t trust either one of them,” Egrin said quietly. “The elf lives and breathes stratagems, and the huntress is young and desperate.”

“We’re all desperate,” Tol countered. “Be of stout heart, son of Raemel! I’ll harness these two hounds, and they’ll do good service.”

*

They established a simple camp just outside the burned walls, but didn’t bother setting up defenses. They were too few to defend the camp if nomads attacked, so Tol felt the best defense was helplessness. He doubted the nomad host would bother a few survivors trying to eke out a spare existence in the ruins of Juramona.

The crimson flag Tol had planted did its work. People began to gather in the camp. Scores of Juramonans emerged from the ruins, certain the great Lord Tolandruth could protect them from any menace. Lean-tos and shanties sprang up, constructed from whatever could be salvaged. Despite the seemingly total devastation, much useful material was collected by the careful gleaners. Many cellars had survived intact, as Artan proved, and yielded up a bounty of food and drink.

Tol wanted Egrin and Kiya to depart the next day, at sunrise. The former marshal had readily accepted his mission, to rally the landed hordes, but Kiya was still not happy with hers.

“Kender troops?” she exclaimed. “Husband, you can’t be serious!”

“It does seem a contradiction in terms,” Tylocost put in dryly.

“Any arm that can wield a sword is welcome,” Tol said, looking at each of them. “If Hylo hasn’t yet felt the wrath of the nomads or bakali, it will. Remind King Lucklyn or Queen Casberry of that.”

Lucklyn and Casberry, married co-rulers, were never in Hylo City at the same time. While one remained at home, ruling, the other went off wandering, in the way of kender. Tol hoped Kiya would find Casberry in residence. He’d dealt with the queen before, when he and three hundred hand-picked warriors had sought out and slain the monster XimXim. Casberry was a cunning old pirate, but the kender queen knew where her best interests lay – just the sort of ally Tol needed now.

For the first time, Kiya openly regretted Miya’s absence. The younger Dom-shu sister, a haggler of fearsome reputation, would have been fully equal to bargaining with the doughty Queen Casberry.

Once she’d spoken Miya’s name, Kiya fell silent. The sisters had never before been separated for so long. Although the stoic Kiya would never admit it, Tol knew she missed Miya terribly.

After Kiya finally agreed to go to Hylo, Tol went to make a tour of the growing camp, alone. He wanted to gauge the mood of the survivors. An entourage would only draw unwanted attention. As a concession to Kiya’s concern, he promised not to go beyond the outermost ring of shelters.

Duty and love had called Tol out of the Great Green, inspired by the strange visions he’d had in the forest, but as he walked among the exhausted, frightened people squatting by campfires, he felt a surge of anger. Witnessing the brutal hand of war laid upon the land and people he knew filled him with righteous outrage. He knew who was to blame – not the nomads, nor even the mysterious bakali. The true author of this misery was the Emperor of Ergoth.

In Tol’s view, Ackal V had betrayed his people by appointing incompetent warlords to command the empire’s hordes. The emperor demanded personal obedience from his hirelings; martial skill was secondary. This valuing of loyalty over skill could bring about the downfall of the empire.

As he passed among wounded women and children, Tol recalled that he had been favored by the gods never to fight in a losing battle. He’d seen warriors maimed and killed, but had never known the harsh hand of war on his own people. This destruction was a strange new experience. Seeing the people’s suffering brought home to him that it was not only defeated soldiers who paid the price for losing, but the soldiers’ families, and the village, farm, or town each warrior claimed as home.

Shame burned through him. To have lived forty years and only realize this now!

In spite of his own fury at the emperor’s failures, Tol found no corresponding resentment among the encamped Juramonans. Stunned resignation seemed to be the prevailing mood, followed by a thirst for revenge. Most disturbing were the scavengers, like Artan, who saw in the empire’s troubles an opportunity to enrich themselves. Artan himself had managed to slip away after his cache was confiscated. Stern measures might be needed to keep his kind in line.

As Tol passed by two families huddled around a blazing fire, an old man reached out and gripped his hand. Aged eyes looked up at Tol with desperate hope. Touched, Tol patted the oldster’s gnarled hand and bade him and the others good night.

*

Everyone was bedded down when he returned – everyone save the huntress. She sat, fawn-colored cape draped around her shoulders, facing the dying fire. Tol knew that the age of a half-elf was notoriously hard to judge, but in this light, Zala looked almost like a child.

“Trouble sleeping?” he asked.

Zala kept her eyes on the flickering flames. “I’m wondering when we’ll get to Daltigoth.”

“So am I.” He sat down next to her. Half-joking, he said, “Worried about collecting your fee?”

She lifted the leather pouch from around her neck and poured its contents into one hand. In addition to Valaran’s ring, Tol saw that a small gold locket lay in her palm.

“Here are the reasons I worry,” she said. “Your empress and my father.”

The locket was a plain golden disk, about the size and thickness of an imperial crown coin. Tol pried it open with a fingernail. Within was a small circle of parchment, carefully cut to fit the depression in the locket. Painted on the parchment in skillful detail was a portrait of a gray-haired human with pale eyes and a pointed chin.

Tol could see the resemblance between father and daughter, around chin and nose. He closed the locket, and Zala took it back, clenching her hand around it.

“If I don’t produce you in a timely fashion, the empress will have my father killed.” Tol scoffed at this notion, but Zala hissed, “She told me so to my face!”

“Zala, we are all taking risks. And if we fail, it’s not only our own lives that are lost” — he gestured at the people sleeping around them — “but the lives of those who love us, those who depend upon us.”

“It’s a terrible land that lives by such ways!”

Tol waited until she had returned the locket and Valaran’s ring to the leather pouch around her neck, then he said, “Gods willing, I will get to Daltigoth, but the route may be long and the way dire, and I need your blade, Zala. If I guarantee your father’s life, will you stand with me?”

“How can you make such an offer? Caergoth is far away, and ruled by a cruel governor!”

“I’m Lord Tolandruth. I have ways.” He smiled disarmingly. “Give me your sword, and I will do everything in my power to preserve your father’s life.”

She rested her chin on her updrawn knees, considering. Could this human be trusted? No one she’d met seemed to be neutral about Lord Tolandruth. Love him, hate him, fear him – everyone had definite ideas. She knew a bit of his history, knew he was the son of a farmer, the sort that Riders of the Great Horde usually trampled on their way to battle. Yet he had become their master, a general of armies and warlord of the Great Horde. Even Tylocost – haughty, infuriating Tylocost – had vowed to follow this peasant warrior.

Kaoth. That’s what the elves called it. Fate. One was either its victim or its master. Although she’d known him only a short time, Zala had no doubt which of those applied to Tolandruth.

She made up her mind. Rising gracefully to her feet, she looked down at him.

“Safeguard my father, and I’ll stand by you until this business is done.” Dark eyes bored into his. “You have my word.”

He gave his solemn promise. She would not take his hand, but nodded once and turned away to find her bedroll.

Chapter 7

CRUCIBLE

Forty horsemen galloped up to the summit of a low hill, the highest point for leagues. Dawn was not long past, and pallid strips of fog still clung to the low places. At the riders’ backs, the silver stream of the Dalti River gleamed. Golden sunlight fell about the horsemen, promising heat later in the day. Lord Breyhard removed his helmet, already sweating. His slightly paunchy frame and prematurely graying hair made him look older than his thirty years. Standing in the stirrups, he craned his neck in as wide an arc as his armor would permit. “Where are the damned lizards?” he growled. Fifty hordes were poised behind him on the rich flatlands of the Dalti’s floodplain, ready to sweep forward at his command. Three days ago they’d crossed the river after a brisk fight. Since then, no sign of the bakali army had been found. Another fifty-eight thousand warriors waited on the opposite shore. They were to cross the river and take the enemy in the flank – once the enemy was discovered.

“Send word to General Crumont,” Breyhard ordered his nearest aide. Crumont commanded the fifty-eight hordes on the other shore. “Tell him to head south to Traveler’s Cove, and begin his crossing at once. He will establish a bridgehead and remain there until I summon him.”

The aide saluted with his dagger and put spurs to his horse. Another warrior moved forward to take his place. Breyhard addressed him.

“Vintox, lead the Red Hawk and Solin Star hordes on a sweep of the countryside north and east of here. The enemy must be there. Find them.”

Breyhard had reasoned, not poorly, that the bakali would withdraw to rougher, more wooded ground. If imperial horsemen could catch the slower-moving enemy foot soldiers in the open, the bakali would find themselves at a disadvantage. He was certain the bakali had retreated to the pine hills northeast of the river bottoms.

Vintox departed, and another warrior guided his horse forward to his general’s side, but Breyhard looked around. He wanted someone else.

“Where’s Casselron? Where’s the wizard?”

A man in late middle age, his blond hair pulled back in a rough queue, rode slowly through the press of burly warriors. Casselron the White Robe, looking saddle-sore and wan, hoarsely hailed his commander.

“Find the enemy,” Breyhard snapped.

The wizard rubbed his chin. Spending so much time in the saddle did not allow him to keep to his usual standards of grooming. He grimaced at the feel of his unshaven face, and at the situation in which he found himself. A wearer of the esteemed White Robe should not be traveling in the company of such ignorant warriors, required to perform spells like a market fair entertainer, but this was his mistress Winath’s notion of how to please the emperor.

Casselron pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.

“As you command, my lord, but —” Breyhard’s eyes narrowed, and Casselron made his voice as deferential as possible. “General, I remind you that divination has consistently failed to locate the bakali since their entry into Ergothian territory.”

Like most Riders, Breyhard had a distrust of magic and those who wielded it, no matter which creed they followed. “So, your skills are inferior to the lizard-men’s,” he scoffed. “I’ve said it all along.”

Casselron flushed but wouldn’t be baited into an argument. It would be pointless. He promised to do his utmost and departed. Like its rider, his horse was unaccustomed to the rugged life of a warrior. At a shambling trot, the animal carried the wizard a few paces away to open ground.

At home, in the Tower of High Sorcery, Casselron would have employed a full invocation before a polished pan of sacred oil, calling upon Manthus, Corij, and Draco Paladin to reveal the enemy to his eyes. Here, on a damp hilltop leagues from any city, he was forced to improvise.

He turned his back on the troop of anxious, yet arrogant warriors surrounding Lord Breyhard. From a leather sheath on his saddle, he drew his staff. The wooden stave was some two paces in length, topped by a golden dragon’s claw. The claw gripped an opaque white disk slightly larger than Casselron’s palm. Lips moving silently, Casselron gazed into the white disk.

His vision pierced the milky surface. Distance melted away and flowed past his probing gaze. Leagues flashed by – north, east, and south. He saw farms, emptied and abandoned, roads clogged with overturned carts, fields devoid of activity. Unlike the rampaging nomads, the bakali didn’t slaughter and loot indiscriminately, but their advance across Ergoth had driven common folk from hearth and home into the walled cities, where they waited for the emperor’s hordes to subdue the invaders, making it safe for them to return home again.

But Casselron saw no lizard-men. The farther he looked, the fewer signs he saw of the bakali’s passage. They must be close.

Something touched the wizard’s consciousness as he roamed over field and farm. It was a fleeting sensation, as though a shadow had crossed the sunlight of his vision.

Casselron was one of the best scryers in Daltigoth – he’d been chosen to accompany Lord Breyhard for that reason – and this delicate contact alerted him at once. The bakali were provided with magic of their own! It cloaked their movements and befuddled every attempt by Ergothian mages to use their powers against the invaders. Such protection did not require an army of powerful sorcerers. One dedicated practitioner, if skillful enough, could block all prying eyes.

This was Casselron’s theory, at any rate: a single adept mage was assisting the bakali. The mage could be a rogue wizard with an axe to grind against the empire, like Mandes, or a forester shaman of unusual skill, a heathen priest, even a Silvanesti. The gods alone knew what mischief elves were capable of.

Abruptly, Casselron found himself face to face and mind to mind with the other. The confrontation happened so suddenly it had to be a deliberate revelation.

“You!” Casselron cried, utterly astonished. Gray eyes, curly, sand-colored hair – he knew this face!

A sharp blow to his chest ended Casselron’s vision. He looked down. An arrow protruded from his chest. That wasn’t right —

Lord Breyhard saw the White Robe topple slowly from his saddle. Breyhard fumed. Weakling! The fool had fainted before providing any useful information!

A hail of arrows showed Breyhard he was wrong. Horses reared as missiles struck home. Warriors fell to the ground, arrows in faces or shoulders. Someone shouted, “Ambush! Ambush!”

As the shafts fell around him, Breyhard called for his own bowmen. “Get those spawn of snakes!” he roared.

A contingent of Seascapers from the far west rode forward, short bows ready. The arrows had come from a copse of trees atop a nearby low hill. The gray-green bakali were hard to spot among the leafy branches, but a few Seascaper arrows found their targets. With shrill cries, injured lizard-men plummeted from their perches.

“If any of those live, I want them!” Breyhard ordered.

Warriors around him drew sabers and spurred forward to sweep up the fallen. They hadn’t ridden ten steps before noise erupted behind them. From the hilltop, Breyhard could see a melee breaking out on the floodplain. Fully armed bakali had sprung up out of nowhere among the idle troops.

The general bellowed, “Cornet, sound formation!”

The boy put his brass horn to his lips. An arrow in the back knocked him forward over his saddle, but the young Ergothian bravely managed to sound the horn, relaying his commander’s order, before he succumbed.

The bakali had buried themselves in the soft black loam of the river bottoms. Apparently, they could go without air for an amazing length of time. So utterly still had they lain, the Ergothians had rode right over them, ignorant of the danger beneath their feet.

More lizard-men were appearing every moment. Brawny, scaly, stained with dirt, they uttered high-pitched screeches as they raised high their axes and swords. They cut at the legs of the Ergothians’ horses, and when the riders were thrown down, three or four lizard-men would fall upon them and hack them to bits. Blood and soil mixed to make a dark and fearful clay.

The Ergothians tried to sort themselves into the usual fighting formation, but the enemy was among them, all around them, shrieking, slashing. Breyhard could not rally his confused, frantic men. He allowed himself another moment to curse the vile beasts he faced, then drew his saber.

It was not the sort of battle the Ergothians were accustomed to. There were no lines, no maneuvering, no great, sweeping charges. Fifty thousand Ergothians, more or less stationary on horseback, had been surprised by at least an equal number of bakali. A vast, formless brawl ensued as both sides fought to the death. Swords clashed, spears thrust, blood flowed. Men and horses screamed as they perished, and bakali keened their strange, shrill cries. Unhorsed soldiers, filthy from the same black earth that had hidden the bakali, continued to fight on foot. In the awful confusion, sometimes man fought man and lizard slew lizard. It was every warrior for himself.

Gradually, Ergothians gathered on the strand, pushed to the edge of the river by the great mass of lizard-men. Rafts and boats, used by Breyhard’s army to cross the Dalti earlier, had been tethered to the rickety piers of Eagle’s Ford. Masses of camp followers and other noncombatants attached to the army had been crowding aboard the boats. Such was their terror and confusion, nearly three-quarters of them still remained, fighting frantically to board the vessels.

Breyhard, bleeding from five wounds, sent word that the remaining watercraft were to be cut loose. His lieutenants blanched at the order, but the general was insistent that there be no retreat. Breyhard had realized that if the bakali defeated his men and captured their boats, they would be able to cross the Dalti in strength today – and the only other imperial force with a hope of stopping them, General Crumont’s, was busy crossing the river to the south, as Breyhard had ordered. The whole of western Ergoth would find itself wide open to the invaders.

The boats, freed of their moorings, slowly spun away, heading downstream. Empty boats collided with those carrying terrified camp followers, most of which were barely half full.

Breyhard turned his bloody, mud-stained face back to the battle.

“Let’s kill some lizards,” he said to his lieutenants, managing a savage grin. “I never could stand the smell of them!”

He urged his wounded war-horse into the fray. Shoulder to shoulder, his retinue followed their commander.

*

Valaran closed the mirror-box. The battle was over. The leather case beside her yielded a sheet of foolscap, which she lay on the reading table before her. She dipped a stylus in ink, then, choosing her words with great care, put pen to paper:

Your Majesty, she wrote. Lord Breyhard is lost, with half his army. Many bakali have likewise been slain. The Dalti crossings are unguarded.

She stopped there, offering only the bare facts, not advice.

After sanding the short note, she folded it and sealed the edges with wax. One strike on a small gong summoned a waiting servant. She was an elderly woman, whose crimson livery hung loosely on her gaunt frame.

Valaran commanded her to take the note to the emperor, warning her to pass it to one of his minions and not to give it to him herself.

“Do you understand?” Valaran asked.

Blue eyes, yellowing with age, regarded the empress without any change of expression. The old woman nodded. She had served in the palace for decades and did indeed understand. Whoever gave this note to the emperor risked a beating – if not death.

Alone again, Valaran unrolled a map of central Ergoth. Eagle’s Ford was slightly less than twenty leagues from the capital. If General Crumont extricated himself quickly, his fifty-eight hordes would suffice to defend the city, but he would not have enough men to attack the bakali. The initiative would pass to the invaders.

Grim but satisfied, she allowed the map to curl shut.

“Grasp every circumstance, make use of friend and foe alike,” she whispered. The little-known saying of her ancestor Pakin Zan had become the maxim by which she lived her life.

Valaran’s desire to be rid of her cruel husband had increased tenfold with the birth of her son. Dalar had arrived a full year after Tol was exiled, but Ackal V had made the first few months of her pregnancy hellish, until he was absolutely convinced the child she carried was his own.

Valaran loved her son, though she’d never craved children as some women did, but Dalar also provided her with the means to attain the end she wanted. As a woman, she could never gain the support of the warlords for herself, but they would support her son, the rightful heir to the throne.

The arrival of the bakali had been a gift from the gods. She had resolved to use lizard-men, nomad barbarians, and any other opportunity that presented itself to discredit her husband and display his utter unfitness to rule. By grasping every circumstance, making use of friend and foe alike, she would be rid of Ackal V. Dalar would become emperor, and Valaran empress-regent.

*

Egrin and Kiya departed on their missions. The Dom-shu woman was not happy leaving Tol with “one and half elves,” as she put it. Tol did not share her fears. Zala lived by her word, the same as Tol. She would stand by the pact they had made. As for Tylocost, Tol’s command over him was based in part on his old victory, and in part on the Silvanesti’s own notion of honor.

“Trust their honor?” Kiya had said sarcastically, when he explained. “Not too much to ask!”

She rode off north, and Egrin headed east. Tol asked Corij to watch over both of his friends.

The makeshift camp outside the still-smoking rubble of Juramona grew and grew. Five days after Tol’s arrival, it held a thousand people, mostly former residents of the town. By the time the sun set on his eighth day there, almost four thousand had gathered. Fully half of this total were able-bodied men-farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and the like.

One night, standing by a leaping bonfire, Tol addressed them. “Men of Ergoth! I stand here as one of you – landless, destitute, an exile in my own country. I have come back to fight the enemies who burned your homes and laid waste to your lands. If you will have me, I shall lead you.”

A few shouts of support rose from the crowd, but the response was hardly enthusiastic. One fellow cried, “We’re not warriors!”

“Anyone who takes up a sword or spear can fight! I was not born to arms, but I learned the art, and I can instruct you. Will you not fight to expel the invaders? Will you not take back your own country?”

This time the answering cries were more definite. Tol asked if anyone had fighting experience. Ten-score out of two thousand came forward. Most were former foot guards in the service of Marshal Baroth, Egrin’s replacement as Marshal of the Eastern Hundred. Baroth, a young crony of the emperor’s, had left Juramona to ride with Relfas’s army and had never been seen again. When the nomads attacked, the foot guards had defended the High House, but couldn’t hold out against the spreading flames from the burning city. The men had drifted back to the shattered town when they heard an imperial banner was raised. Tol was deeply glad to have them. His new army would require captains.

One man stepped forward. Completely bald, between thirty and forty years of age, he had the carriage of one who’d once borne arms. He said his name was Wilfik, and he’d been a foot soldier of the Juramona garrison.

“How can we fight the nomads?” he asked loudly. “We’ve no horses, and even if we did, we’re not Riders.”

“Soldiers on foot can stand up to horsemen,” Tol said. “I’ll show you how.”

A rag-clad townsman with burns on his hands and face said, “What if we don’t want to fight?”

“No one will abuse you for choosing not to fight. But mark this: any man who takes up arms for his country will never be anyone’s servant again. If we take back this land —” He grinned. “When we take back this land, it will be ours, and no one will be able to wrest it from us again!”

His meaning was clear. Since the warlords had failed to protect the Eastern Hundred, they would have no claim over it once the nomads were expelled. It was a revolutionary notion, and sent a thrill through the assembly. No more raiding nomads – and no haughty imperial overlords either!

“Juramona for all!” someone shouted, and “Free land! Free men!” cried another. More of the group joined in, and soon these shouts echoed through the makeshift camp.

After the assembly broke up, Tol talked with the men who’d claimed to have soldiering experience. He named each man a captain in the new corps, and chose Wilfik to command them. The bald former foot soldier seemed steady and sturdy, his no-nonsense manner just right for leading others.

Everyone knew Kiya and Egrin had ridden off to find help. Wilfik asked what support they might expect. Tol’s reply was blunt.

“I expect none. So should you.”

Dismay colored every face. Tol planted fists on hips and said, “Have no illusions, men! The imperial hordes have always fought to win battles, not to survive them. We won’t make that mistake. In a fight for our lives, we will outlast our foes. Nomads fight for glory and plunder; if they don’t get it fairly quick, I doubt they’ll stay around for a long war. It’s whose men are left standing that matters!” He clapped the nearest man on the shoulder. “If help arrives, we’ll rejoice! But don’t count on it.”

The men dispersed, leaving Tol with only one companion. Tylocost squatted nearby, in the shadows beyond the fading bonfire, idly toying with a stout stick. It was a most undignified posture for a former Silvanesti general. In the uncertain light, with his ungainly features, the elf resembled an enormous insect.

“So, General, what did you think of my address?” Tol asked him.

“I think we shall all end in nameless graves soon.”

Tol’s lips twitched with amusement. The Silvanesti’s pessimism was curiously refreshing. “I’ve faced worse odds, you know.”

Tylocost rose to his feet in one smooth motion. Such graceful movements reminded Tol his charge was no ordinary fellow. Whatever his looks and high-handed manner suggested, Tylocost was a mature Silvanesti elf, with all the intelligence and subtlety that implied.

“It’s not the nomads I fear, nor even the bakali,” Tylocost said. “You just declared war on the empire, and that, my fortunate foe, is a losing proposition.”

Tol grinned widely. “Perhaps. Can I count on your support?”

“To the death.”

“Good. I intend to give you a command of your own.”

For once the elf had no quick comeback. He stared at his conqueror, then recovered his accustomed poise.

Inclining his head graciously, he said, “Thank you, my lord. I will do my best.”

And someone will suffer for it, Tol thought. He hoped it would be the enemy, and not himself.

As Tol retired to his lean-to, Tylocost went for a walk along the fringes of the camp. Hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the trampled grass in front of him, his thoughts were far away.

He’d circumnavigated a quarter of the sprawling camp when he suddenly stopped and pointed the stick he still carried toward the outer darkness.

“Half-breed, why do you shadow me?”

Zala emerged from the night. “You heard me?” she said, impressed.

“You’re only half-stealthy.”

She grimaced. “You never speak to me without flinging mud on my ancestry!”

“The mud is already there. Answer my question.”

Biting back the retort that sprang to her lips, Zala settled on simple truth: “You’re a goodly distance from your bedroll. You might be thinking of running away, to betray us to the nomads.”

His eyes widened. “Twenty years I’ve lived as Lord Tolandruth’s paroled prisoner. I could have escaped any time I wanted, but I pledged to honor my surrender until he released me, and I shall.”

“Silvanesti have no allegiance but to their own kind!” she snapped.

The silence held for a moment, then Tylocost shrugged and tucked the stick under his arm like a cane, turning away and resuming his walk. She fell in step beside him, and they proceeded in silence for a while, circling the sleeping camp from south to north. Cookfires dying to dull embers dotted the scene. Dark mounds of sleeping humans, covered in salvaged blankets, lay in irregular ranks on the dewy ground. Everywhere was the smell of smoke, sweat, and desperation. Zala’s pity for the survivors was obvious. If Tylocost felt anything, he did not show it.

“What do you know of my homeland?” he asked, his low voice just audible over the sound of their footsteps.

“Very little,” she admitted. “My mother was Silvanesti, but she never returned home after she married my father.”

“Foreigners cannot imagine the glory of the Speaker’s realm. Silvanesti worship, above all things, beauty. They have, by art and artifice, made Silvanost the single most beautiful place in all the world.” Zala had heard the same from those few fortunate enough to have seen the capital of the elves. “Imagine how I was regarded in such a place.”

Her footsteps faltered only slightly before she recovered. Zala could indeed imagine. The unsightly gardener must have stood out like a boil on the face of a beautiful girl.

“My paternal ancestors were noble in the extreme. They stood at the right hand of Silvanos himself. My grandfather slew a dragon – the black dragon Tasak’labak’kanak, in the First Dragon War. He rode his war griffin Skyraker up to the monster’s very jaws and drove a silver spear through its eye and into its brain. My father, if he still lives, is high counsel to the Speaker of the Stars.”

“You don’t know whether your father lives?” she asked, and he shook his head. She thought of her own father, the frail, kindly scholar whose life depended on her success. When he died, wherever she was, she would know it.

Tylocost continued. “One day, as the great Silvanos held court in the Tower of the Stars, a comely lady caught my father’s eye. Her name was Iyajaida, an exotic word meaning ‘moth-wing.’ No one knew her. It was said she’d come from the northland. In spite of her unknown lineage, my father pursued and won her, besting several other rivals. Not long after, I was born.”

Tylocost abruptly stopped walking. For an instant Zala thought he’d seen a danger, nomads lurking in the night perhaps, but he only stared straight ahead and said, “The day I was born my mother vanished, never to be seen in Silvanost again. People said she took one look at me and fled in shame.”

In spite of his even tone, Zala knew he was baring soul-deep wounds to her. As diplomatically as she could, she asked him why he was telling her these things.

“Because you will understand,” he replied. “Comely though you are, you’re a half-breed, and despised by elves and most humans, too. I am a full-blood Silvanesti from a fine and noble line, yet all my life I’ve been persecuted for my ugliness. The first time I ever felt wanted was when the Tarsans hired me to lead their army. But the first person who ever showed me true respect was that damned peasant, Tolandruth.”

Males were very strange, Zala decided. Tolandruth, so imposing with his muscles, piercing eyes, and great victories, seemed an overgrown boy, burning with notions of justice and honor. This elf, more arrogant than a cartload of emperors but one of the shrewdest people Zala had ever met, was consumed with loneliness and shame. She began to understand the empress’s devotion to Tol, and Tol’s trust in his former foe.

When Zala returned to the here and now, Tylocost had slipped away. The stick he’d carried stood where he’d been, its end thrust into the sod.

Chapter 8

ROLLING THE BONES

Dust rose in choking clouds around the Juramona camp, churned up by the feet of hundreds of men. The dust of the Eastern Hundred was infamous, a fine, floury, yellow soil that coated everything once the anchoring grass was stripped away.

The members of Tol’s new army bore weapons salvaged from the town – spears, halberds, or in many cases, merely sharpened wooden stakes – as they practiced moving in unison and deploying to attack or defend. He organized them into squads of ten, with five squads making up a company. Ten per company would have been better, but he didn’t have the manpower. Twenty days after his arrival at Juramona, his effective force comprised a scant thousand men under arms, a single horde of raw infantry. At least that many more had slipped away or begged off joining Tol’s tiny army. He let them go. A man unwilling to fight was no asset anyway.

At Tol’s side stood Wilfik, the former High House guard he’d appointed as chief of his company captains. Less than a handspan taller than Tol himself, Wilfik had proven a capable drillmaster. Perhaps to counter his bald pate, he sported the thickest, blackest beard and brows Tol had ever seen. The eyes beneath those redoubtable brows were an unusual color – pale gray. The combination of light gray eyes and beetling brows gave him an especially fearsome aspect when he was angry. He was angry now. Shouting curses, Wilfik stormed over to a company that had maneuvered clumsily. He grabbed the captain of the wayward group and spun him around.

“Left!” Wilfik roared directly into the fellow’s face. “You purblind donkey! I said ‘counter-march left’!”

After shoving the fellow back into line, Wilfik rejoined Tol.

Spitting a mouthful of dust, the bald soldier said, “Lambs to the slaughter! Dull-witted, thick-headed lambs to the slaughter, that’s what this lot will be when we meet the nomads again!”

“They’re willing enough,” Tol responded mildly. “What they need is confidence.”

The troops, dubbed the Juramona Militia since they were volunteers instead of levies, were drilling on the plain south of the camp. Further west, Tylocost and a work gang were preparing surprises for any nomad attackers.

Tol had offered the Silvanesti command of half the militia, but Tylocost declined. Although a warrior from birth, he knew the training of raw troops was not his strong suit. A better use of his time, he tactfully suggested, would be building field fortifications. For three days now those not fit to fight had labored for the elf, hauling timbers, brick, and other debris from the ruined town to the open plain. Mounds of masonry rose, interlinked by fences of heavy timber.

Tol bent to uncover the water bucket at his feet, but the wooden lid was whisked off by another hand. Zala’s.

The huntress rarely left his side, having appointed herself his personal guard in order to fulfill the pledge she’d made: to bring Tol to the empress and thereby collect her payment. The half-elf was a capable tracker, and certainly knew the sharp end of a blade from the dull, but Tol wondered how she would stand up to open battle. She’d never tasted the terror and mayhem of war.

He sipped from the gourd dipper, then offered it to Wilfik. Wilfik poured the contents over his sweating head. As Tol refilled the dipper, Wilfik drew his attention to the southeast, where dust was rising from the plain. They had no men training or working in that direction.

Tol dropped the gourd into the bucket. “Have the men fall in.”

Once the companies had assembled, their marching feet stilled, the hot breeze soon cleared away the dust they’d churned up. All eyes watched the rising cloud; it was moving from southeast to east, toward the morning sun.

“A scouting party?” Zala asked hopefully.

“I make it five hundred horse, at least.”

Tol’s comment erased the hopeful expression from Zala’s face and she grimaced. Not a scouting party – more likely, an entire nomad tribe on the move.

A runner was dispatched to warn Tylocost. The militia and its leaders headed back to camp at a quick march.

The dust column was moving fast, circling wide to the east at a distance of two leagues or less. There was a dry stream bed along that line, Wilfik remarked. The horsemen were probably using it for concealment. The rising dust had given them away.

Reaction to the ominous portent was quick back at the camp. The returning militia found no one except those too old or sick to work for Tylocost. The rest had abandoned their tents and lean-tos, seeking the imagined protection of the Juramona ruins.

Tol deployed his raw troops in company blocks of one hundred men. He spread sixty hand picked men, all young, in a skirmish line a hundred paces in front of his foot soldiers.

Although he had a horse, Tol chose to lead on foot. Zala, white-faced with worry, stuck to him like dew on a leaf.

The dust column died away. The horsemen had stopped.

Tylocost appeared, striding through the trampled grass. His floppy gardener’s hat shaded his face, and he gripped not a sword or spear but his long walking stick.

“Poor sports, these nomads, coming up on our undefended side,” he said. “Still, what else can you expect from barbarian —”

“Shut up,” Tol said. To Zala’s amusement, the elf obeyed.

A covey of partridges flew up from the tall grass a long bowshot away. Tol drew Number Six.

“Skirmish line, kneel.” He didn’t shout. A calm, even voice was needed to steady his men. All went down on one knee, including Tylocost and Zala.

“Present arms.”

His skirmishers, armed with salvaged pikes, extended their weapons, sweaty hands gripping the fire-blackened poles too tightly. Tol suddenly wished Kiya was at his side. Her unfailingly accurate bow and unflappable calm would have been a welcome addition to this pitiful force.

A distorted wail rose from the plain. It began as a single voice, then others joined in.

Several of the men closest to Tol began to shift nervously. The unease spread outward, along the skirmish line.

“Tylocost, did I ever tell you how I acquired this dwarf steel blade?” Tol said conversationally.

Never taking his eyes off the horizon, the elf replied, “No, my lord, you never did.”

“It was in the Harrow Sky hill country, after the surrender of Tarsis.”

As Tol continued to speak, his voice carrying, the general nervousness visibly lessened, but he didn’t get to finish his story. From where the partridges had flown now rose a swarm of nomads. Tol knew this trick. Short-legged nomad ponies had been trained to crawl on their bellies while their riders crawled alongside. When they were close enough to charge, man mounted horse and both sprang up.

The abrupt appearance of the enemy, seemingly from nowhere, drew gasps from the defenders. More than one of the skirmishers showed signs of panicking.

“Stand fast!” Tol barked, raising his voice now. “Run now and they’ll kill us all! Remember: we must stand together!”

The enemy came on, screaming. Again, Tol called for his men to stand fast, but his mind was busy reckoning the numbers. Only eighty or ninety were approaching. The others lurked out of sight.

The nomads covered the ground quickly. They made straight for Tol’s line, confident they could ride down the few, widely spaced foot soldiers. The upraised pikes should have given them pause, but they had beaten Ergothians before, and in greater numbers than this. Howling and waving their swords, the nomads kept coming.

“Aim for the riders not their animals,” Tol said.

The first wave of horsemen ran themselves straight onto the skirmishers’ pikes. A score of nomads and their horses fell. The impact drove the Ergothians back, and many lost their pikes as the impaled riders fell.

“Fall back to me!” Tol ordered. Terrified, the skirmishers formed a knot around him, and Tol told them, “Don’t just stand there! If you’ve lost your pike, draw your sword!”

There was no more time for orders as the second wave of nomads broke over them. Tol warded off a blow from one rider, ducked a second, then delivered a sideways slash that emptied the saddle of a third attacker. When the nomad hit the ground, Tol planted a foot on his chest and stabbed him through the throat.

Something snagged his leather jerkin. He turned to find a nomad swinging a saber at him. Zala dashed by Tol, her sword pointed, and ran the attacker through the ribs. Tol acknowledged her help with a quick wave, then faced new enemies.

More from self-preservation than training, the skirmishers formed a tight circle to fend off the horsemen, who continued to gallop around them, yelling and taking opportunistic cuts at the Ergothians. Bowmen could have picked off the nomads at their leisure, but what few archers there were Tol had sent to guard Tylocost’s work party.

A bold rider, full of battle-lust, plunged straight into the ring of desperate foot soldiers. Tol’s newly minted warriors cringed before his mount’s flailing hooves, but Tylocost stepped up and thrust his blunt stick at the man’s face. The attack caught the nomad squarely on the chin, and he flew backward off his horse. Neck broken, he was dead by the time he hit the ground.

The fight went on until, as at some silent signal, the nomads suddenly withdrew. Tol sent his skirmishers back to Wilfik’s line. A third of their number remained behind, dead in the torn-up, bloody grass.

Wilfik, good soldier that he was, had not broken ranks to rescue Tol’s company. He held the Juramona Militia in line as the retreating skirmishers filtered back among them.

“Brisk set-to,” he observed, pale eyes fixed on his men.

“They’re aggressive all right,” Tol agreed. He was covered in sweat and blood, the latter not his. Zala, her sword gripped in both hands, stared with wide eyes at the plain. She, too, was spattered with the blood of others. Tylocost pushed her blade down gently.

“Draw a breath,” he advised. “You’re safe for the moment.”

A moment was all they had before the full complement of nomads came charging out of the dry creek. About five hundred of them this time, Tol noted, taking grim satisfaction at the accuracy of his earlier estimate. There were men and women both, all furious at their initial repulse.

“Companies, present!”

The Ergothians held a numerical advantage. They were nine hundred eighty-eight strong, although only a fraction were experienced warriors. At Tol’s order, they presented their spears and a thorny hedge blossomed in the front of each block of one hundred men.

“Standfast!”

To the experienced eyes of Tol, Tylocost, and several others, it was obvious they faced members of several nomad tribes. Some of the oncoming riders were covered head to toe in buckskin, others fought bare-chested. Hair was long, either braided or loose, or heads were shaved, then painted or covered by leather skullcaps. Their favored weapon was the saber, much like those wielded by the Imperial hordes, although some carried the short bow or light, throwing spear. Fully a third of the attackers were female – as formidable in battle as their male comrades. Like the Dom-shu, some of the nomad tribes made little distinction between male and female warriors; it was skill that mattered, not gender.

Tol sheathed Number Six and took up a pike. Zala stood on his left, trembling. On his right, Tylocost leaned casually on his staff.

“One charge is all we’ll get,” the elf said.

Wilfik looked back over his shoulder. “Eh? How do you know?”

“I’ve been fighting human nomads since long before you were born,” Tylocost replied. “They’re fierce, but they don’t have the determination to stand and fight it out with steadfast troops. If we don’t give way, they’ll give up.”

“Ten gold pieces says you’re wrong!” Wilfik said, eyes glinting beneath his fearsome brows.

The Silvanesti nodded. “Accepted.”

The enemy was closer now, their screeching cries audible over the pounding of their horses’ hooves.

It was too much for one company of the militia. The Seventh, to the right of Tol’s position and some forty paces away, threw down their pikes, turned tail, and ran. Wilfik bellowed curses to no avail.

Half the nomads veered, heading toward that gap in the formation. Immediately, Tol ordered the three leftmost companies to advance as they swung right. The two companies on the far right, isolated by the desertion of their comrades, were given leave to fall back, but in a slow and orderly fashion.

With the lines seemingly giving way before them, even more horsemen concentrated on the gap yawning ahead. The nomads had no formation, no discipline. None of them noticed the troops on the left moving out and arcing around them. None of them noticed that the ground over which they galloped sloped gradually upward, slowing their charge.

Tol ordered the two retreating companies to halt. Their lines were ragged, and they could barely hear him over the din, but they stopped. In the next moment, they were engulfed by rampaging horsemen.

The rest of the nomad column hit Tol’s position. For an endless time, there was nothing in the world but screams, rearing horses, and the clash of arms, but slowly, very slowly, the hundred-man companies began to push the horsemen back. The block of Ergothians with Tol maneuvered to strike the nomads from behind. On the far left wing, the last company jogged through the dust to close in.

At last the nomads realized their peril. Those at the rear of the melee warned their fellows: they were surrounded by solid phalanxes. The nomads tried to break away, but engaged on two sides, they could not. Finally, the center of the mass of horsemen slashed their way through and galloped away.

It was a heady sight for the militia. Their enemy was in flight. Two militia companies opened ranks and gave chase, cheering in triumph. Tol shouted himself hoarse calling them back, but they either didn’t hear or wouldn’t heed him. As he feared, the retreating nomads abruptly wheeled their ponies and attacked, hacking down scores of the running Ergothians. The heedless militiamen, scattered and isolated from their fellows, were easy prey.

The surviving soldiers came streaming back to Tol. He ordered two companies who’d held formation to move forward and fend off the pursuers. With their foe regrouping, the nomads abandoned the fight and rode for the western horizon.

The battle was done. In moments, the breathless chaos of combat had given way to abrupt calm. Agonized voices groaned for water. Dust hung in a red haze over the field.

The victorious foot soldiers started back toward camp, desperate for drink and attention to their injuries. Tol, Wilfik, and the other officers went quickly among the staggering ranks, shouting anew.

“Back in line! No one dismissed you! Get back in line! This retreat could be a feint!”

Cuffed and shoved by their furious officers, the men gradually returned to formation. Tol stalked up and down the line, glaring at his troops.

“What have I told you, day in and day out, since this began? Stay together! The only way men on foot can fight and win against horsemen is if they stay together!” He wove his fingers together and shook his hands at them, bellowing, “Together!”

He pointed down the hill to where many of the militia had fallen. “Do you see them? They were so pleased by their little victory, they broke formation and chased the enemy. Now they’re dead! Those are your comrades, your brothers, lying lifeless in the dirt! That will happen to all of you if you dare part ranks in the presence of the enemy again!”

Silence fell over the battlefield. Tol kept them there, standing shoulder to shoulder under the midday sun, while he hammered home the lesson. What must they always do? He would roar. Stay together, a few voices croaked in reply. Again, he shouted the question, and again, until every voice joined in the reply.

Tol knew their throats were parched from thirst. So was his. He knew their hands were blistered, arms and backs aching from the unaccustomed exercise. And more, he knew their heads reeled from all they’d been through. Still, they had to learn this lesson. Their lives depended on it.

He dispatched Wilfik and the Second Company to recover the dead and wounded, Juramonan and nomad alike. Much useful information might be gathered from the enemy, whether living or dead. He then ordered the First Company to fall out. The men in question looked at each other dazedly for moment, then shuffled out of line and back to camp.

Once the First had departed, Tol heard a low sound behind him and realized Zala was still on the battlefield. She sat in the grass, holding her head in her hands. She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Horrible,” she whispered.

Tylocost was some thirty yards south, standing among those who’d fallen in the first clash. Leaving the three remaining companies still standing at attention, Tol walked through the dead men and horses until he reached the elf general.

“Some are alive,” Tylocost said, indicating wounded nomads moaning among the dead. “They can be questioned.”

The Third Company carried the injured nomads to the village and kept them under guard. As the enemy wounded were pulled from beneath their fallen horses, Tylocost reminded Tol of another problem that must be dealt with: the Seventh Company’s desertion.

“I know,” Tol said tiredly. “But I can’t afford to make examples of one hundred men.”

“You need not hang them all. One in ten should be sufficient.”

Cruel as it sounded, Tylocost’s suggestion was quite lenient by Ergothian standards. In the Imperial Army, one man in three would have been beheaded for desertion in the face of the enemy. But the Juramonans weren’t true soldiers, Tol pointed out, not yet. They could hardly be expected to act like professionals when many had touched a pike for the first time only days ago. Still, discipline must be served, lest the example of the panicked company spread to the rest. Those who’d run away had to be punished, not for their good, but for their fellows who’d stood firm.

Wilfik arrived and offered his commander a skin of water.

“No sign of the savages,” he said, grinning. Two of his teeth had been broken put years before, giving him a gap-toothed smile. Slanting a look at the Silvanesti, he added, “I owe you ten gold pieces, elf!”

Tol passed the skin to Tylocost. “How many dead?” he asked Wilfik.

“Forty-two of our men, and sixty-six wounded to varying degrees. I count thirty-five nomads dead.” Wilfik’s black-bearded grin faded. “We also have fourteen prisoners.”

“Keep them under tight guard. I’ll want to interrogate them.”

Tol started back to the waiting army, but Wilfik caught his arm.

“Some of the prisoners are known to us, my lord. They looted Juramona, murdered many. Our men want to see them pay for that!”

“They’re prisoners of war,” Tol replied firmly. “I order them spared. They can give us valuable information about the larger bands of nomads.”

Tylocost fell in step beside Tol. Together they crossed the field toward the three companies still standing at attention.

“The deserters, my lord?” Tylocost said relentlessly. “One in ten?”

Tol halted. “Very well. See to it. One in ten – but no more, understand?”

With a nod, the elf departed. Tol studied his retreating back. Was that a smile on Tylocost’s face as he turned away?

Forty of the militia had collapsed from heat and fatigue while they’d waited for Tol’s return. They had to be carried by their comrades when Tol at last ordered the men back to camp. Ragged cheers greeted the victors. The aged, the young, and the infirm were buoyed by the sight of the fearsome nomads fleeing from their former victims. Tol’s name was chanted, but once he started shouting orders, the survivors of Juramona fell to, bringing food, water, and medicine to their defenders.

The captives were taken to a ruined stone house in Juramona. Fourteen rangy nomads – five women and nine men – sat disconsolately as glaring militiamen stood guard on the low walls surrounding them. Most of the nomads had minor wounds.

“Who is chief among you?” Tol called out.

Fourteen pairs of sullen eyes gazed at him, but no one answered. Tol repeated his question more sternly, and a blond youth with sword cuts on both shoulders spoke.

“Our chief is Tokasin,” he said. “He will hear of this outrage, and his wrath will be terrible!”

Tol laughed. “Every nomad in Ergoth will hear about this day. That’s for certain! Your days of terror are coming to an end!”

A black-haired woman with blue tattoos on her cheeks asked, “Who are you, grasslander? You’re not one of these sheep.”

He told them. From their nervous shifting, they obviously recognized his name.

Although he asked several times where their chief was, they would say no more. He ordered they be given food and water, but no treatment for their wounds until they decided to talk. The sergeant of the guard he warned to be alert for any who might show a change of heart.

Feeling bolstered, Tol returned to camp. On the way he saw soldiers routing out Seventh Company deserters who were hiding in the town’s ruins. The militia men had no qualms about arresting their former comrades. Their own lives had been put at risk when the Seventh ran away, and they were none too gentle about catching the cowards who had endangered them. Near the ruins of the town wall, a gang of workmen was knocking together salvaged timbers in an open area. As he passed this gallows, Tol’s fragile confidence gave way to gloom.

Zala, freshly scrubbed, was waiting for him at his shelter. She had bandages, a jar of ointment, and a basin of clean water. She ordered him to take off his jerkin and let her inspect any damage. Amused by her imperious tone, he did so, and she commenced scrubbing his back.

“Ow! What is that, sharkskin?” he complained.

“Quiet!” She resumed scrubbing at the dirt and blood with the coarse bit of wet cloth. “Some warrior! Can’t take a little cleaning!” She resumed with a vengeance.

The washing revealed that Tol hadn’t so much as a scratch. Zala muttered something about luck, and he smiled. Kiya was always saying he was the luckiest dolt the gods ever made.

Despite the roughness of her ministrations, Tol found his eyelids growing heavy. He hadn’t tasted battle in six years, and no amount of wood-chopping in the Great Green could substitute for the adrenaline rush of open combat. Exhaustion claimed him. His chin dropped to his chest.

Zala stepped back and regarded him in amazement. He was snoring! The great ox was asleep!

Tol shifted position, easing himself onto his side without ever waking. Zala watched him, a frown on her face. What she’d been through today would trouble her own sleep for many nights to come.

*

Ackal V let the empty cup fall to the flagstone floor. It was solid gold, cast in the reign of Ackal Dermount, but without wine in it, it was just so much cold metal. He reached for a full cup, this one of translucent crystal etched with the Ackal arms.

His private chambers were alive with revelry. Smoke from the roaring fire mixed with the smells of incense, sweat, and spilled wine. The emperor had decided to forget his troubles with a little celebration. Breyhard had failed, and his army was lost. Crumont had managed to return across the Dalti River and fall back to the Ackal Path, ready to defend the capital from a bakali assault. It had never come. The lizard-men disappeared once more into the rich farm country northwest of the city. The Great Horde was searching for them.

The only ones invited to this party were the Emperor’s Wolves and a few special guests, including Breyhard’s kin. His two wives were chained to pillars, with his three children cowering at their feet. Breyhard’s brother had been arrested as well, but the Wolves had been careless and allowed him to fall on a concealed knife, cheating the emperor’s vengeance.

Filthy, unkempt Wolves lurched around the captives, bellowing insults and drenching them with wine or cider. In the shadows beyond the firelight, Ackal’s hounds were savaging something: a beef joint from the cooking spit, or one of the servants – the emperor couldn’t tell which.

Ackal V got up from his couch, brushing aside a sodden courtesan. With the exaggerated dignity of the intoxicated, he smoothed his wrinkled crimson robe and tightened its sash. Without being called, Tathman appeared silently at his master’s elbow.

“I’ve neglected my guests,” the emperor said. “Come.”

Two Wolves had passed out while berating the dead warlord’s wives. Ackal roused them with kicks. Once they crawled away, he addressed the chained women.

“You know why you are here, don’t you?”

The elder wife, a plump, dark-eyed brunette, nodded curtly. The younger, red haired and half Breyhard’s age, only sobbed and hung slack against her bonds.

“I have decided to be merciful and spare your lives,” he said, weaving slightly as he tried to stand straight. “You will be consigned to slavery in Windgard.” This was the capital of the Last Hundred, the province at the extreme western end of Ergoth, south of the Seascapes and west of Thorngoth. “The marshal there will be your master, and will do with you as he sees fit.”

The elder wife pleaded, “Majesty, send me away, but please don’t punish the children. They can serve the empire well when they grow up, but as slaves, their lives will mean nothing!”

“The law is clear. A general who loses his army loses his life and family.”

The younger wife, red-eyed behind her ginger hair, cried, “Not me! Don’t send me away, sire! I married Breyhard only half a year ago – I thought he was to be a great warlord!”

He lifted her chin. “You married him for his position? Not love?”

“Yes!”

He let go her chin and glanced back at Tathman. “Have her head put on the wall.”

The woman screamed, but Ackal roared at her, “I’ll not have my warriors wedded to greedy, ambitious wenches!”

Tathman signaled to two reasonably sober Wolves. They took the younger wife away. As she shrieked and begged for her life, Ackal V calmly returned to the pillar holding the elder wife.

“Lady, I’m going to set you free,” he said. “You asked for your children’s freedom, not your own. You’re the kind of woman the empire’s warriors need. Take your children home and raise them to be better Riders than their father.”

Moving carefully but quickly, the elder wife gathered up her children. They disappeared into the darkness between the double line of columns.

Tathman was gnawing his long lip, staring after the departed group. “Speak,” Ackal told him.

“You’re too generous, Majesty,” the chief Wolf said in his vast, deep voice.

“Maybe. I’ve had a great deal to drink.”

He cast about for another full cup. Tathman took a goblet from a tray borne by a jumpy servant and handed it to the emperor. Ackal drained it.

“Still,” he said, “by sparing one, I’ll make loyal subjects of the rest.”

Tathman bowed his head. “The emperor is wise.”

What Ackal V did not know – or forgot in his drunken state – was that Breyhard’s elder wife was Kannya Zan, cousin of the late Pakin Pretender, and no friend of the Ackal line. Delaying in the capital only long enough to pack a few essentials, she and her children made for the port of Thorngoth. On the way south, Kannya told the story of her humiliation to every Pakin relative she encountered, and there were many.

Chapter 9

CAST A GIANT SHADOW

The day after the repulse of the nomads, Tol awoke wooden and groggy. He’d grown too accustomed to the relative comfort of his Dom-shu hut. His bedroll seemed to grow harder with every night. He was getting too old to be sleeping on the ground.

After stretching the stiffness from his limbs, he left the lean-to. A grim sight greeted his bleary eyes. Tylocost’s gallows had been filled overnight. The Seventh Company deserters hung there, dark against the brightening sky.

Strong emotions filled Tol: anger, that men should have to die like this, but forgiving cowardice in war only bred more cowards. Then came sadness, at this reminder of the frailty of life.

His melancholy musings suddenly were replaced by puzzlement. The Seventh Company comprised one hundred men; he’d told Tylocost to punish only one in ten, so there should be ten men on the gallows. Yet, more than twice that number of bodies dangled from the improvised gibbets. Those at the far end wore buckskins.

Furious, Tol shouted for Tylocost and Wilfik. The first person to respond was Zala. In response to his demand for an explanation, she said, “Your Silvanesti did as you ordered. Then they hanged the nomad prisoners.”

She could not tell him who had ordered the execution of the prisoners. So, Tol strapped on Number Six and strode into the awakening camp. He shouted again for his lieutenants. Tylocost appeared.

“You bellowed, my lord?” the elf said politely.

“Who gave the order to execute the nomads?”

“Wilfik. It was a popular decision.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

Tylocost pushed back his floppy gardener’s hat. “I am Silvanesti, and still your captive. I have no authority over these people, save what you grant me.”

Tol could barely speak, he was so angry. “They were prisoners of war under my protection! And they could have told us much about the nomad armies!” Lives and opportunity both had been wasted, lost at the end of a knotted rope.

Wilfik arrived at last. His explanation was simple. “The savages weren’t going to tell us anything else, my lord,” he said flatly. “After what they did to Juramona, hanging was too good for them.”

Tol’s fist connected with Wilfik’s broad jaw, and the warrior went down. All around them, heads turned. Even more turned when their warlord’s powerful voice reverberated over the camp.

“Get out of this camp, Wilfik! Get out of my sight! If I see you again after midday, I’ll string you up beside those men!”

Wilfik looked up at his commander in stunned confusion. He opened his mouth to protest, but the fury in Tol’s posture left no doubt he was utterly serious. With as much dignity as he could muster, Wilfik stood, straightened his brigandine, and walked away.

Tol began to berate Tylocost again, saying the elf should have awakened him before letting the prisoners be hanged.

The Silvanesti shrugged one shoulder gracefully. “As a rule, my lord, I try not to interfere when humans are killing each other, but if you wish it, I shall hereafter.”

This bland indifference to the injustice swaying in the wind only infuriated Tol anew. He considered banishing Tylocost, too, but a sliver of reason intruded itself. That might be exactly what the elf was hoping for. Perhaps he was regretting his decision to fight alongside his captor, but his oath of surrender bound him until Tol freed him. And Tol wasn’t yet ready to lose the former general’s expertise.

Instead, Tol ordered Tylocost to have the dead cut down and decently buried. The elf departed, and Tol was alone with Zala.

“In war horror begets horror,” he said.

Tol’s loathing of executing helpless prisoners had been learned at a tender age, when he was forced to watch the Pakin rebel Vakka Zan beheaded in the town square of Juramona. Egrin had been required to do the deed, honor-bound to obey the marshal of Juramona, Lord Odovar.

There was nothing more he could do for the dead, so Tol turned his attention to the soldiers who’d guarded the captives. Once they were brought to him, he asked whether the prisoners had said anything useful to them.

One fellow scratched his head with a meaty hand. “Some of’em talked bold,” he allowed. “Said as how their chief, Tokasin, would come back an’ kill us all.”

The captives had mentioned two other chiefs – Mattohoc and Ulur – but it was on Tokasin they pinned their hopes. He was chief of the Firepath tribe, which they called the boldest and hardest-riding folk on the plains.

Tol, like most Ergothians, saw the nomads as a faceless mass of mounted foes, cruel, with quicksilver tempers. Learning the names of their chiefs was worthwhile information.

The guards contributed one other piece of information gleaned from the nomad captives. The prisoners claimed to be scouting for a much larger band. Their comrades who had survived yesterday’s battle would return to the main force and that, they boasted, would be the end of Juramona’s pitiful defenders.

Tol drilled the militia all day. He didn’t share what he learned from the guards, but word got around. There was no more trouble with shirkers. The twin specters of nomad blades and the deserter’s noose had resolved all qualms. It was fight or die.

The trick, as Tylocost dryly noted, was to make certain the militia fought, and the nomads died.

*

Two nights later, Tol went to inspect Tylocost’s work west of camp. The wind was up, sweeping across the long grass. Zala, his omnipresent escort, carried a torch that flared wildly with every gust.

Tylocost had erected a large number of obstacles to screen the vulnerable western approaches. What appeared as random piles of loose masonry and fire-blackened timbers hid a grim purpose. Riders would have to slow their mounts to navigate the narrow passages. When they did, they would be perfect targets for archers and pikemen concealed behind the mounds.

As he drew nearer and details of Tylocost’s defenses became clear, Tol’s brisk pace slowed.

The elf had left an open lane through the center of the field. The enemy would be funneled into this lane. The thigh-high plains grass gave way to loose dirt. A length of rope was buried just under the surface. Some distance further along, Tol could see another patch of disturbed soil. The seemingly clear lane was filled with traps.

“That elf is tricky as a kender,” Tol muttered. Trained Ergothian warriors would never fall for such an obvious ploy, but the reckless, unsophisticated plainsmen just might.

Zala interrupted his admiration of Tylocost’s deadly ingenuity. “My lord, do you hear that?”

Tol started to shake his head – all he could hear was wind moaning around the piles of debris – then came a lull, the gusty breeze died, and he heard it. Zala’s keen ears had discerned a faint rumbling. Not like thunder, rolling through heavy clouds, this was more like the steady, distant roar of a waterfall. Tol knew that sound.

“Run!” he shouted, and they legged it for camp.

Zala’s torch expired, snuffed by the wind of their passage, and she threw it aside without pausing. She covered the ground rapidly, with Tol only a few steps behind.

As soon as the camp came into view, he raised the alarm. Sentries took up the warning, beating an improvised gong – a battered brass tray from a Juramona tavern. Men and women came stumbling out of their shelters, grappling with helmets, bits of armor, and weapons. Tylocost, moving with all the speed and agility ascribed to his race, dodged the clumsy humans and hurried to Tol.

“Horsemen,” Tol panted. “Massed horsemen coming from the west!”

Tylocost rounded up his makeshift troops and led them out to his crazy-quilt fortifications. The able-bodied men had joined Tol’s foot companies, so following the elf was a motley band of boys, women, and old men. It was a lot to ask, that these folk should bear the brunt of the nomads’ first assault, but the survival of every soul at Juramona depended on their steadfastness.

It was two marks before midnight, and the night sky was streaked with clouds. Moving fast across the field of stars, the clouds were stained pink by the light of Luin, no more than a crescent of scarlet and hanging low on the horizon. Solin, the white moon, had already set. Tol hated night battles. Facing horsemen with green militia was difficult enough, but the dark gave an even greater advantage to veteran fighters.

He arranged his militia outside the dark, frightened camp in an arrowhead formation. Foremost was the reconstituted Seventh Company, led by Tol himself, with two of his steadiest companies behind them, and the rest echeloned behind. At Tol’s order, any who fled the coming battle were to be cut down in their tracks. The soldiers clutched their pikes, looking sleepy and frightened at the same time.

To the west, Tylocost doffed his gardener’s hat and tied a strip of white cloth around his forehead, to make it easier for his people to pick him out in the dark. He climbed atop the highest of the brick mounds to search the deep darkness for signs of the enemy. He could certainly hear them. Even the dull-eared humans couldn’t miss the low, constant thud of so many hooves.

In the open lane, he had arrayed a few troops as bait. Should the nomads prove reluctant to charge into his trap, the presence of those pitifully equipped foot soldiers should entice them.

Shards of brick skittered down the side of the mound on which Tylocost stood, shaken loose by the growing vibration of the enemy’s approach. The Silvanesti’s vision, far keener than a human’s, detected movement upon the plain. Bits of brass horse tack glimmered, as did hundreds of bare iron blades. It was only the advance guard. From the sound of it, thousands more nomads were behind the outriders.

Tylocost had done his best with the defenses, but inwardly he doubted that few if any of his people would survive the night. For the first time in his long life, he admitted the possibility of his own death, acknowledged he might never again look on the crystal spires of Silvanost, never walk among his own graceful, civilized people. Ugly, despised Janissiron Tylocostathan would die before his time, alone, surrounded by crass, bloodthirsty humans. Astarin and all the gods would weep!

The first wave of nomads cantered toward him. None seemed to take particular notice of Tylocost’s defenses, which looked very like the rest of the ruined town. The riders now were only paces from the stakes the elf had driven into the turf to mark maximum effective arrow range.

He removed the white cloth from his head and raised it high. “When I give the signal, loose all!” he called down to his troops. “Mark your targets well, but don’t dawdle! There are plenty for all!”

The first line of horsemen rode over the wooden stakes. Tylocost brought the white cloth down sharply. His archers let fly.

A rain of arrows in the dark is an unnerving thing. The nomads couldn’t hear the snap of bowstrings, or the thrum of the approaching missiles, over the noise of their horses. They glimpsed the hardwood shafts falling through the air only an instant before the arrows struck.

Riders toppled from their horses. The vanguard hesitated, then spied the bait troops huddled in the open lane between the obstacles. With much shouting, the enraged nomads charged.

Tylocost descended from his perch and stood beside his tiny band. Most were visibly trembling, but all remained where they were, gazes shifting between their unlikely leader and the oncoming horsemen.

“Remember what I taught you,” he called over the swelling noise. “At my command, fallback!”

Archers in the front ranks continued to sting the nomads, and marksmen atop the mounds also took their toll. A few plainsmen shot back, concentrating on the bowmen they could see silhouetted against the stars. One by one the Ergothians were picked off.

“Steady,” Tylocost said. “At my order, not before.”

When the nomads were just twenty paces away – close enough to see the flaring nostrils and gnashing teeth of their hard-charging ponies – Tylocost gave the command, and the small block of townsfolk broke apart. They streamed back down the dirt path, still clutching their weapons.

Ten paces along, the elf general halted and gestured with his bared sword. Eight Juramonans dropped to their knees and took hold of the buried ropes. Tylocost raised his sword, and the Ergothians hauled on the lines. Sixteen sharpened stakes rose up, hinged at the base, which was buried in the dirt.

There was no time for the leading edge of nomads to avoid the trap. They piled up on the stakes, and the press of horsemen behind them added to the carnage. Men and horses screamed.

“Withdraw!” Tylocost ordered. The Ergothians let go the ropes and followed as he backed slowly away.

Their charge disrupted, the nomads milled about in confusion. Finally, twenty riders worked their way around the first obstacle, and came on. Tylocost’s people uncovered a second set of ropes. The nomads reined up.

After raising the second hedge of stakes and tying the ropes to anchors already driven into the ground, the Ergothians withdrew further, and raised a third line of sharp pilings. Their part of the battle done, Tylocost’s troops filtered back through the waiting militia and returned to camp.

Donning his floppy hat once more, Tylocost joined the militia.

“Not much of a helmet,” Tol remarked.

“So far I’m having good luck with this hat. I’ll keep it.”

Their respite was brief. Horsemen had picked their way through the garden of traps and obstacles the elf had created, but arrived at the camp to find Tol’s troops drawn up to meet them. With veteran soldiers, Tol would have attacked the disorganized riders, but he didn’t dare break ranks to advance with his newly minted militia. Much of their courage came from solidarity with their fellows.

The nomads threw spears and showered arrows on the motionless blocks of Ergothians. Now it was the defenders’ turn to fall prey to death arriving out of the darkness. They raised their shields high, but not everyone had a shield, and the arrows slowly pared their ranks.

Tol held his men steady, knowing that, as bad as it was, the bombardment was another ploy to make the Ergothians break formation.

Zala, standing behind him, said, “Can’t we do something to stop the arrows?”

He watched shafts pepper the turf at his feet. “Send word to the leftmost companies,” he said. “At my order, they will advance into a solid line with us.” Zala hurried to deliver his message.

Tol’s blood was up. The nomads wanted to make things hot for them – he’d teach them what war was really about!

With much shuffling and clanking, the companies on Tol’s left moved forward. Immediately, the hail of arrows faltered as the enemy horsemen crowded forward. Pikes leveled, the militia halted in place.

“All front ranks will kneel,” Tol said. His order was repeated by his officers throughout the companies. The first line of Ergothians went down on one knee.

He drew Number Six. “There will be no retreat. When a soldier falls, the man behind him will step up and take his place in line.”

Tylocost drew a slim, straight blade and stood beside Tol, darkness cloaking his homely features.

“Juramona!”

Tol’s battle cry boomed out over the anxious Ergothian line. Raggedly, they echoed the shout. He repeated it, and this time the response was stronger.

The nomads hit the end of the line, trying to outflank the leftmost company. Tol’s men faced about, forming a square bristling with pikes. The horsemen couldn’t reach them with their shorter swords. After a sharp struggle, the riders broke off.

This continued for a seemingly endless space of time – nomads surging against one spot, only to be repelled by Ergothian pikes.

“This isn’t like them,” Tylocost panted, gesturing with his sword at the withdrawn enemy. “Usually, it’s one hard charge, then they quit!”

Tol agreed. Since their first attack on Tylocost’s defenses, the plainsmen had been fighting the Ergothians persistently for many marks, probing here and there. Although they broke off when things got too hot, they didn’t ride away, but came back at a different point.

Drenched in blood and sweat, the Ergothians battled on, leaning on their pikes to rest whenever the enemy gave them breathing space. Perhaps this was the nomads’ new strategy – to wear them down – but surely they and their animals must be exhausted, too.

Clouds in the eastern sky showed the first pink tinge of the coming dawn. Tol’s little army was drawn up on a slight rise below the ruins of Juramona, the western plain spread out before them. The first sliver of sun peered over the horizon at their backs, its light sending their shadows out ahead of them, banishing the last of the long night.

On beholding what the new sun illuminated, Tylocost exhaled slowly, face blank with disbelief.

“Astarin have mercy,” he breathed.

From north to south, as far as the eye could see, the western plain was covered with horsemen. The prisoners’ boasts had been true – the main body of nomads had returned when word of their advance party’s trouble reached them. The defenders of ruined Juramona, whittled by battle to barely eight hundred, faced thousands upon thousands of fresh, ferocious enemies.

*

The banquet hall of the imperial palace in Daltigoth was an enormous room one hundred paces long and forty-four wide, paved in black granite and walled with the finest North Coast gray marble. The vaulted ceiling rose to a height of two stories. A single massive table filled the center of the hall. It seated six hundred, and more guests could be accommodated at temporary tables erected alongside. For an imperial banquet, massive bronze ovens were wheeled in to keep hot the tremendous quantities of food necessary to serve so many.

The hall was so large it had its own weather. On damp days, mist formed in the high crevices of the ceiling, and dew collected on the cold stone floor. The worst heat of summer never penetrated the thick stone walls. If the great ovens weren’t present, roaring with contained fire, the chamber could be downright chilly.

Most found the banquet hall unpleasant unless it teemed with diners, but Empress Valaran relished it. In the vast open space, she could tell she was not being spied upon. Her every whisper in the palace was heard frequently by the wrong ears. In the echoing emptiness of the banquet hall, she almost felt free.

Clad in a white dressing gown quilted with red thread, the Empress sat at the head of the long table. Her son, Crown Prince Dalar, sat on her right. The only other occupant of the hall was a single female servant, standing a few steps away by a wheeled sideboard.

Dalar slurped loudly at his soup. The empress rapped her pewter spoon once on the rim of her golden bowl. Chastened, the five-year-old prince swallowed his next mouthful more decorously.

Twenty rooms and three floors away, the Consorts’ Circle was celebrating the birthday of Princess Consort Landea, the emperor’s fourth wife. A well-fleshed, vain chatterbox with a fondness for sweetmeats, Landea followed her husband’s example: the news of Lord Breyhard’s defeat did not interfere with her merrymaking. Her suite rang with shrill laughter, as sweet wine and honeyed confections were consumed in staggering quantities. The festivities would go on all night. Never mind that Breyhard’s army lay dead along the Dalti shore. Never mind the city seethed with discontent, riots, and murder. Not even the execution of Breyhard’s young wife dampened the spirits of Landea and her idiot friends.

A clang of metal on metal echoed lightly in the hall, pulling Valaran out of her dark thoughts. Dalar had tapped his spoon on the rim of his soup bowl and was looking up at her with a glint in his green eyes.

“Mama,” he said, “you’re fidgeting.”

Valaran realized she’d been drumming her fingers on the tabletop, just the sort of restless behavior for which she always chided her son. The look on his face was so endearing she couldn’t help but smile, but she thanked him quite seriously.

The boy returned his attention to his soup, pleased at having caught her. His mother never fidgeted. She could sit unmoving through even the longest, most boring speeches and ceremonies.

Her own dinner had congealed by this time, but Valaran didn’t notice. She continued eating mechanically, her thoughts once more on the terrible situation in the city.

Since word of the debacle at Eagle’s Ford, Ackal V had been on a rampage. Enraged beyond the point of reason, he ordered the families of the leading warlords in Breyhard’s hordes punished. Labeled as weaklings unfit to serve the empire, the warlords’ adult sons were beheaded. Their wives, sisters, and daughters were condemned to slavery on imperial estates far from the city. Any councilors or courtiers known to have favored Breyhard were likewise punished. The headsmen had been at it for days – another reason Valaran supped in the banquet hall. Here she was spared the sickening sound of the executioner’s axe.

The doors at the far end of the hall burst open. Two Wolves entered, one announcing, “His Majesty, the Emperor of Ergoth!”

Valaran touched her lips with a snowy napkin, and stood. The servant stepped forward to shift the heavy chair for the young prince, and Dalar hopped down.

Ackal V stormed in. These days he was perpetually furious. No richly bedecked councilors or warlords in glittering panoply dogged his heels. He was surrounded, as always, by his brutal, loyal Wolves. A black bearskin cape of prodigious weight was draped over his shoulders, and he had taken to wearing gloves, even indoors, but never could seem to keep warm.

“Lady, why are you here?” he rasped. Out of breath from his continuous tirades, he was disheveled, red hair and beard untrimmed and wildly awry.

Valaran replied calmly, “For dinner, Your Majesty.”

“I can see that! Why aren’t you with the Consorts’ Circle? Your absence is an insult to Landea!”

Valaran bowed her head. “I wished to dine with our son, sire. My heart is too heavy with recent events to pass an evening in idle pleasure.”

Ackal V plucked a morsel of bread from his son’s plate and chewed it rapidly. “You always have a glib excuse, don’t you?” She said nothing, as he glared at her. “Someday I’ll have your head, lady.”

“Your Majesty has my head any time he desires it,” she said, gazing steadily at him.

The Wolves, lounging casually around their master, exchanged startled looks. Few dared to speak thusly to the wrathful emperor, but Ackal V reacted with dark amusement.

“By the gods, you’re the only man in the whole palace, besides me!”

The emperor’s mercurial mood had turned remarkably affable. Perhaps it was all the bloodletting in the plaza. Dispatching underlings always cheered Ackal V.

Dalar had been edging slowly toward his mother since the emperor’s arrival. He stood now half-concealed by her dressing gown, pulling nervously at a red thread hanging from its silky surface.

Ackal V approached his son’s chair. The servant moved quickly to pull it back but was forestalled by a glaring Wolf. The emperor seated himself. His lip curled as he regarded the meal before him.

“What is this filth you’re feeding the boy? Carrots? Milk soup? A man needs meat!” He sniffed the pewter cup. “Fruit juice? He should be drinking beer!”

“He’s only a child.”

“I’ll make a man of him,” Ackal said, and bawled for a libation.

The servant filled a tall goblet with beer. The emperor drained it. The servant refilled it, and Ackal ordered Valaran to sit. Dalar stood by her chair, on the side farthest from his father.

“Have some beer, boy.” When Dalar didn’t move, Ackal V grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and shoved a brimming cup to his lips. Dalar swallowed once, then coughed convulsively. Disgusted, his father took the drink away.

A snicker came from one of the Wolves. The emperor looked to the giant he called “my Argon,” and snarled, “No one laughs at my son and lives!”

From beneath the silvery wolf pelt he wore, the giant drew a dagger in a lightning-swift motion and plunged it into his hapless comrade. The fellow dropped to the black granite floor and lay still.

Valaran was so proud of her son. Although Dalar’s hand clenched convulsively around hers, the boy made no sound at all.

Ackal finished the last of his son’s meal, drained the goblet of beer again, and jumped to his feet. Valaran stood as well.

“I’ve ordered the raising of a hundred new hordes from the western provinces,” he said. “They will form at Thorngoth under Lord Tremond. Our ships will carry them across the bay to the far shore and land behind the lizard-men. That will put paid to the beasts!”

Lord Tremond was one of the few warlords remaining from the reign of Pakin III. He was an honorable man, and had been a redoubtable warrior, but as governor of Thorngoth and Marshal of the Bay Hundred he hadn’t taken the field in ten years. New hordes would take time to gather and train. An aging commander in charge of green troops could have little hope of success against the wily bakali. The emperor was doing nothing less than sending thousands more to certain death.

“Do you intend to defeat the bakali by drowning them in blood?” Valaran asked, voice rising.

“If necessary.” He smiled. “Whatever succeeds is right – isn’t that what your ancestor Pakin Zan always said?”

“Pakin Zan was a cunning warlord, not a butcher!”

Ackal V kicked over his chair, face white with sudden fury. “Take care, lady!” he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. “You are useful, but do not task me! No life is sacrosanct in my realm – displease me, and yours will be forfeit!”

She’d heard similar threats so many times before, they no longer held any terror for her. She knew she could be killed at any time, but when the emperor was stomping about, shouting, she wasn’t much concerned. Only when he was still and quiet did she become frightened. Quiet meant Ackal V was thinking, and the thoughts of such a vicious, pitiless man were terrifying indeed.

Her silence pleased him. Thinking her cowed, Ackal V drew back, his color returning to a more normal hue.

“It’s always a delight to see you, lady. You never fail to stir my blood.”

He turned and walked away, followed by Argon. Just as the tension binding Valaran’s shoulders began to ease, Ackal V reached the far end of the great table and turned back to her.

“You will come to my chambers later tonight. One of my men will come for you.”

She acknowledged his command, and Ackal V swept out. Argon slammed the banquet hall doors closed behind them.

Valaran sank into her chair, her knees suddenly weak, an icy chill gripping her heart. She hardly noticed when Dalar climbed onto her lap. His frightened trembling forced her to put aside her own fears and focus on her son. He was small for his age, too small, like a seedling struggling for sunlight at the base of an overgrown oak. She held him close, stroking his smooth black hair and murmuring words of comfort.

Her glance fell on the gleaming utensils beside her plate. The knife’s silver blade was delicately engraved, its edge keen enough to slice tough parchment.

Not yet, she told herself. Soon perhaps, but not yet. Endure, Valaran. Endure, for him.

Chapter 10

FORTRESS WITHOUT WALLS

He dawn lit up a plain teeming with nomad horsemen – the very tribes that had destroyed Juramona, a walled town defended by a professional garrison.

Tol, keenly aware of his own tiny, amateur force, ordered his companies to form for a quick march back to camp. The kneeling men rose wearily to their feet. The nomads kept a wary eye on the Juramonans as they moved away.

Tol was watching the nomads just as carefully. “All companies will retire in line,” he said. “Keep your faces to the enemy!”

The Ergothians withdrew slowly. The nearest nomads followed, maintaining the distance between the two groups. When the rear of the militia reached the edge of their camp, the noncombatants gathered behind them. Civilians and soldiers alike backed through camp, trampling their own tents. Zala found herself next to Tylocost. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Hylo Bay?” he suggested.

The rear ranks reached the ashes of Juramona. When the front ranks, those closest to the enemy, were treading on ashes, Tol called a halt. With the ruined town at their backs, they could not be outflanked; no riders would dare try to enter the tangle of broken walls and burned timbers.

To their credit, the Ergothians stood ready, pikes leveled. The noncombatants, clutching their pitiful belongings, huddled behind them, some sobbing, others tight-lipped. Fear, the morning’s heat, and the ash churned up by their passage had soldiers and survivors panting. Tol called for water. The bleating of a ram’s horn sent him up onto a pile of scorched masonry for a better view.

A small group of riders left the main body of nomads galloping forward. Some wore brightly burnished helmets, no doubt taken from slain imperial officers. One fellow rode ahead of the rest and blew again on a curved ram’s horn.

“Sounds like they want to parley,” Tol reported, coming down from his perch. “Tylocost, stay here. If there’s treachery, command falls to you.”

“How nice.” The Silvanesti continued to wipe the grime from his sweaty face.

Tol shouldered through his exhausted, doomed men, with Zala following.

“You should stay here,” he told her.

“I know,” she replied, not slackening her pace.

The small group of nomad riders had formed themselves into a semicircle. Three helmeted figures sat in the center – the three chiefs, Tol surmised: Tokasin, Mattohoc, and Ulur. Once Tol and Zala drew near, the two ends of the curved line swept forward, closing the circle.

The nomads were lean and sun-browned, dressed mostly in leather, with bits of captured armor here and there. Some had the fair hair and long jaws of high plainsmen, others the burnished bronze complexions and tightly curled hair of the northern seafarers. Unlike the forest tribes, who decorated themselves with feathers, bones, and seashells, the plains nomads favored metal adornments. They traded extensively with Hylo, Ergoth, and Silvanost, obtaining silver and golden trinkets from their settled neighbors. Tol observed quite a lot of jade. The only source of the mineral he knew was in dwarf territory; the plainsmen must be dealing with Thoradin, too. All the nomads in the group were male.

The youngest of the three chiefs was a rough but striking rogue with a shoulder-sweeping mane of red hair and a thick mustache. Despite the warmth of the morning, he wore a fine, heavy mantle of fox fur, whose color matched his hair perfectly. On his right was an older, thick-bodied man, with a bull neck, dark skin, and a lumpy, shaven head. The third chief was older still, but lean and tough as whipcord. His iron gray hair was twisted into numerous long braids, his beard divided into three plaits, held tight by jade beads woven into them.

Although he could hear Zala’s rapid breathing behind him, Tol felt surprisingly calm. This was his element, matching wits against dangerous foes. The despair that had gripped him on beholding the vast nomad host vanished. Time to show these barbarians who they were dealing with.

Zala noticed the change in his attitude. Tol’s back had straightened, his expression hardened, and a new spring was now his step. She couldn’t fathom it. In her head, a single word pounded over and over: run. Only by sheer force of will did she keep her eyes fixed on the waiting chiefs and fight the urge to bolt and not stop running till the walls of home surrounded her again.

Tol murmured, without looking at her, “Calm yourself. We’re not lost yet.”

He strode forward, halting only when they were within arm’s reach of the red-haired chief’s horse; its roan color matched its rider’s furs and hair. Raising a hand, he greeted the three chiefs Dom-shu fashion.

“You have come to speak. Speak.”

The red-haired chief leaned forward on his horse’s neck and grinned unpleasantly. He’d cut quite a dashing figure until then. The image was spoiled by a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

“I wanted to see who’d put spines in these dirt-foots,” he said. “Must be you, Ergoth.”

“I command here.”

“You’ve put up a good fight,” said the oldest of the three chiefs, tugging on one of the three plaits of his beard. “For this, we’re willing to let you and your people leave this place. It is ours now.”

Zala’s gasp was audible only to Tol. He said, “We are where we must be. It is you who must go.”

Red Hair laughed. “Who are you, Ergoth?”

Tol gave his name and the dark-skinned chief, heretofore silent, exclaimed, “I heard Tolandruth was dead, slain by the treacherous slavemaster he called emperor!”

The chiefs exchanged glances. Braided Beard said, “Since you have given us your name, I will speak ours. I am Ulur, chief of the Tall Grass Riders.” He indicated his burly colleague. “This is Mattohoc, chief of the Sand Treaders.”

The dark-skinned nomad grunted in acknowledgment. Red Hair spoke for himself, saying, “I am Tokasin, chosen chief of the Firepath people, and leader of this warband.”

Warband he called it. There must be ten thousand nomads at his back, a greater concentration of plainsmen than had ever been known.

“My itch has been scratched,” Tokasin announced to no one in particular. “Tolandruth or not, put down your arms and depart, or we’ll trample you into the ashes of your city!”

“It is you who must depart, Tokasin,” Tol said coolly. “I have come back from exile to drive every marauder from the empire. Return to your lands in the east and I will not punish you further.” He gestured with his chin at the ruined town behind him. “Many injustices have been inflicted on your people in the past by the empire. I will count the sack of Juramona against that tally, but here your cruelties must end. Go home!”

Ulur and Tokasin laughed at Tol’s bold demand. Mattohoc did not. He regarded the Ergothian thoughtfully.

Tokasin ended the parley with a ringing boast: “I will build a tower of skulls here, and yours will sit at the top, Ergoth!”

The three chiefs wheeled their horses in tight circles. They and the rest of their party began to ride back to their waiting warriors. The two heralds blew their horns, ending the truce.

Tol started back to his people, with Zala pointedly guarding his back. She never took her eyes off the nomads.

“Are we going to die?” Zala muttered.

“Certainly,” he replied. “But only the gods know when.”

The Ergothian pikemen parted ranks, allowing Tol and Zala to pass.

Tylocost hailed them. “Welcome back, my lord. Did they surrender?”

Tol repeated the gist of the discussion, with Zala adding Tokasin’s remark about building a tower of skulls. The tired militiamen stirred anxiously, like a herd of elk scenting a panther.

Frowning, Tol loudly declared, “Our fate is in our hands, not theirs! They’re not sure of victory, else they would not have bothered to parley Companies, stand to!” The Juramonans took up their pikes.

Tol went to the rear of the formation and spoke to the unarmed refugees huddled in the ruins. With the enemy host before them, all must play a part in the coming battle. He told any who could stand and bear a weapon to do so.

No one argued. The old and infirm, the sick, and the injured – all shuffled into place, adding some three hundred bodies to the lines. When the stock of salvaged pikes ran out, Tol armed them with axes, billhooks, scythes, and any other long-handled weapon or tool that could be found.

Tol walked down the line with Tylocost and Zala behind him, speaking not only to the new recruits, but to all his people.

“Keep your eyes forward. Pay no heed to what’s behind you. All that matters is the enemy before you. No one is to break ranks without orders. The surest way to kill yourself and the rest of us is to open our lines, so keep your heads. Don’t fence with the enemy. Keep your points to them, and let them exhaust themselves trying to break through our wall of spears.”

He told Tylocost to take the right, the north, where the ground was higher, the ruins steeper.

The Silvanesti’s pale eyes narrowed. Abandoning his usual flippant tone he snapped, “You need not give me the easier position to defend!”

“That is my order.”

“Well, at least keep the half-breed with you. She’ll only get in my way.”

Zala glared at him. She’d never intended to leave Tol’s side, and all of them knew it.

Saluting with his sword, Tylocost said, “Here’s to luck, my lord. I trust the gods have granted you an everlasting supply.”

The relative calm was shattered by the screeching cries that heralded a nomad attack. The plainsmen were coming now and at a gallop. A ripple of nervous fear passed through the Ergothian ranks, but Tol and his officers speedily moved to quash it.

The dead-on charge puzzled Tol. It would have been much easier for the nomads to stand off and rain arrows upon the Ergothians. Instead, Tokasin was gambling on a quick, crushing victory, using a hammer when a needle would do.

The morning sun bathed the nomads in golden light. They were charging directly into its glare. This seemed to cause them little difficulty, but five paces from the Juramonan spearpoints they wrenched their horses hard around. It was obvious the militia would not simply break and run in terror, and the riders had no intention of impaling their animals.

Just to provoke them, Tol ordered a single company – his Seventh, the deserters – forward just far enough to drive the riders back. Some slower nomads were plowed down by the phalanx of pikes, but most danced out of reach. When other nomads poured in to attack the exposed sides of Tol’s company, he swiftly withdrew his men again.

A deadly rhythm ensued. The nomads charged, stopped, and the Ergothians sallied out to drive them back. The strange dance went on all morning, a tense, exhausting business, where the slightest misstep could mean disaster. The sun mounted higher in the sky, and the defenders of Juramona prayed Corij would send a scorching day. The militia had access to the town’s wells; children brought water to those fighting. The plainsmen had only the water they carried, and this was soon gone.

The god was pleased to answer their prayers. The heat increased; the yellow dust of the Eastern Hundred choked every throat, coated man and horse alike. The Ergothians drank deep and hung on.

Two hundred dismounted nomad archers gathered well out of pike range and began loosing volleys of arrows at the closely packed militia. Their shields went up, along with makeshift covers of scavenged planks, canvas, and wicker. The standoff continued.

Zala wiped gritty sweat from her forehead with an equally gritty hand and drew Tol’s attention to Tylocost. The elf sat atop a broken column in full view of the enemy, legs crossed and floppy hat tied securely under his chin.

She pronounced him a fool, but Tol, shaking his head, said, “He is one the finest generals of this age.”

“You beat him.”

“I was fortunate. Even the gods can be undone by an unexpected turn of fate.”

Horns blasted to the right and left. A solid wall of horsemen, brandishing swords, rumbled past the archers and started up the hill toward the center of the Ergothian line. As they had done this many times before (though never with so many riders), no one was overly concerned. The militiamen – once craftsmen, traders, and merchants, now increasingly seasoned as fighters – braced for the onslaught.

Ten paces away, the massive column picked up speed.

“They’re charging home!” Tol said, looking left and right along his lines. “Dig in! Stand firm!” He drew Number Six.

Three paces was as close as the nomads could approach and still have room to turn their ponies aside. That limit was reached – and still they came on. A spontaneous shout went up from the Ergothians, a third of whom were kneeling with their pikes butted against the ground.

“Juramona!” cried a thousand hoarse voices.

The nomads hit the Seventh and the companies on each side, the Third and the Eighth. Sheer weight of numbers bowled the Ergothians down. Many were trampled. An equal number of nomads and their horses were shredded by the hedge of spearpoints.

The Ergothian line was eight ranks deep. In moments the riders had bludgeoned halfway through. The clang of iron, the screams of the dying and their killers rose to a deafening roar. A nomad herald raised a horn to his lips and blew, but not a note could be heard over the unimaginable din.

A flash of color caught Tol’s eye. Red-haired Tokasin was flank to flank with his men, driving them forward.

Tol pushed through his tightly packed men, heading for the nomad chief. More than once he fended off attacks, cut at enemy riders, and felt the whiff of a blade through his hair, but he was making progress toward his goal. Then, a horse’s hindquarters swung around and caught him full in the chest. Down he went.

Unshod hooves kicked at his ribs and back. He scrambled to his feet, only to find himself directly in the path of a sword-wielding horseman about to cleave his head in two. Suddenly, a Juramonan thrust a fire-blackened spearhead into the nomad’s neck. Tol was astonished to see his savior was Wilfik. All this time he must have been hiding, in the ruins.

The dishonored guardsmen said nothing. Neither did Tol. Battle drew them apart again.

Tol continued to fight his way through the press toward Tokasin. When a riderless pony came across his path, he swung onto its back and bawled a challenge. Whooping with joy, Tokasin spurred his red horse at Tol.

The two horses collided hard enough to loosen both men’s teeth. Tol thrust overhand with Number Six. The chief leaned out of reach and aimed straight at his opponent’s eyes. Tol parried, noting the nomad chief wielded an Ergothian cavalry saber.

Tol urged his borrowed pony forward. Seizing the collar of Tokasin’s fox mantle, he drove his hilt into Tokasin’s jaw. The chief’s head snapped back, but he kept his seat. Tol hit him again just as their horses stumbled apart. Nose streaming blood, Tokasin fell sideways off his horse.

There was no opportunity for Tol to push his advantage. A heavy blow fell across his shoulders. Instantly his arms went numb, an icy chill racing to the tips of his fingers. He knew he was falling – the dust-veiled sun wheeled past his gaze – but he didn’t even feel himself hit the ground.

All sound ceased. Horses towered over him, pirouetting in the dance of battle. Blades and spears continued to fall. Yet he could hear nothing. He thought this must be what it was like to die.

You never see the blade that kills you, Egrin used to say.

That homily was meant to reassure nervous new shilder. Now Tol knew it was true.

He became aware of a shadowy figure standing over him. He thought it was Tokasin, come to finish him off, but soon realized the figure was in fact defending him from any who drew too near. Vision blurred by the stunning blow and the roiling dust, he couldn’t make out his protector’s identity.

Tol struggled to rise, cursing his awkwardness. The figure looked down at him, and he caught a glimpse of a bushy black beard and formidable brows over pale eyes.

Wilfik.

A set of hooves suddenly came plummeting toward Tol’s head, and he had to roll swiftly aside. Continuing the motion, he retrieved Number Six from the dirt and sprang to his feet. When he got himself upright, Wilfik was gone.

Tol was a good nine paces from his own line. The nomads had broken his half of the militia in two, driving the right portion northward, back to Tylocost’s position. Pride swelled in Tol as he saw the remaining Ergothians withdrawing in good order to the stump of a tower that had once graced the wall of Juramona.

Coated with dust, Tol was indistinguishable from the mounted foes around him. This fact saved his life. The nomads took him for a fallen comrade, as no other Ergothian had dared break their line. He wended his way through the milling horsemen, felling only a sole nomad who tried to stop him.

When he reached the broken tower, the militia regarded him in breathless wonder. They thought he’d been killed.

Tol nodded tiredly. “I thought so, too. Where’s Wilfik? I have him to thank for my rescue.”

The soldiers regarded him blankly. Tol said the disgraced soldier had fended off nomads until he could get back to his feet.

The captain of the Eighth Company shook his head. “It couldn’t have been Wilfik, my lord. I saw him slain before you were unhorsed. A nomad blade took his head from his shoulders.”

If the captain was certain of what he’d seen, no less certain was Tol. Apparently, even after death, Wilfik had been determined to redeem himself.

A furious blast of rams’ horns ended the discussion. Plainsmen wheeled their ponies about and flowed back down the hill. The slope before the broken tower was heaped with the slain and wounded from both sides. Injured horses fought to stand. Men cried out for water, or mercy.

One of the pikemen near Tol cried, “Mishas spare us!”

He pointed. The nomads were re-forming, plainly preparing to charge again. The brave defenders of Juramona could not withstand another assault.

Before panic could take hold, another blast of horns sounded, this time from the far right of the nomad host. A sizable body of horsemen faced about and rode off to the west. The remaining nomads milled about in confusion, an emotion mirrored on the faces of their foes.

Tol shaded his eyes from the late afternoon sun, trying to see what was afoot. At the same time, he warned his people to stand fast.

Yet another fanfare sounded on the left, from east of the ruins. A roar went up in the distance, which was quickly drowned out by the thundering sound of horses approaching at the gallop.

A battered pikeman sank to his knees, blood draining from his face. “We’re dead!” he moaned. “More nomads have come!”

The leather-clad host before Tol’s position wavered, then spontaneously broke apart. Half the riders turned their steeds east and galloped away. The rest scattered to the winds.

The horns sounded again, closer, and a great rush of relief surged through Tol’s veins. He lifted Number Six high, shouting, “Those are brass trumpets! Ergothians! Riders of the Great Horde!”

Arrayed in the famous wedge formation created by Ackal Ergot himself, four hordes of imperial cavalry passed through the confused ranks of the nomads like a knife into a sack of grain. The remaining plainsmen resisted briefly, then they too scattered.

The armored wedge drove straight across the field. Any plainsmen in its way were ruthlessly sabered. Before the sun touched the western horizon, no living enemy remained.

From their last-ditch position at the base of the shattered tower, the weary militia knew they’d been given’ back their lives. Without orders, the men sank to the ground. A few were asleep as soon as their heads touched the burned turf.

A score of Riders peeled off from the main horde and cantered toward Tol. The first face he saw was Egrin’s. A broad grin split Tol’s face. The grin became wide-eyed surprise when he spotted Egrin’s companions. Riding beside the former marshal of Juramona was a gray-haired warrior in an old-fashioned pot helmet. All the Riders wore armor twenty years out of fashion, and bore the standard of the Plains Panthers horde.

Egrin reined up and dismounted. Tol limped to him and they clasped arms.

“Never have I been so glad to see your face!” Tol declared.

“And I yours, my lord,” Egrin replied warmly.

Tol asked how they’d found him, and Egrin gave a rare grin. “All the raiders in the Eastern Hundred had gathered here,” he said. “Why else would they return to a despoiled town but to kill Lord Tolandruth?”

The gray-haired warrior riding beside Egrin was a big, clean-shaven fellow mounted on a fine gray gelding. The Rider had a familiar, misshapen nose.

“Lord Pagas!” Tol said, saluting the commander of the Plains Panthers, with whom he had campaigned long ago in the Great Green. “You looked like Corij himself, coming to our rescue!”

Pagas looked pleased by the praise but made no reply. A warrior of long service and steadfast courage, he had a high, nasal voice, the result of his misshapen nose. Although the injury had been honorably received in battle against centaurs, Pagas found his childish voice a severe embarrassment, and spoke little.

The Plains Panthers was one of the landed hordes, not part of the regular imperial army. All were former Riders of the Great Horde, who now lived and worked on country estates.

In time of crisis, an emperor could summon the landed hordes to his service. Ackal V had never called the Panthers, nor any other landed horde, to war. Unlike his full-time warriors, Ackal couldn’t bully the gentry, nor chop off their heads if they displeased him.

“He’s losing the war,” Pagas said, referring to the emperor. Word had spread about the defeats inflicted by the bakali. The debacle at Eagle’s Ford was only the latest in a series of blunders.

The lizard-men were now across the Dalti, Egrin related. Whether they would attack Daltigoth was still an open question. Thus far, they had not directly assaulted any walled city, as they lacked siege equipment. But west and south of the capital lay the richest land in the empire, the very heart of Ergoth. The region’s farms and herds fed the entire country. What was more, the sea route to the Gulf lay that way, too. If the bakali ravaged it, or worse, simply occupied it, the empire would be done. The cities would starve. Ergoth would shrivel.

Tylocost’s half of the Juramona militia marched over, providing Lord Pagas and his retinue with the shocking sight of a Silvanesti in command of Ergothians. Tol asked Egrin if he’d received word of Kiya, but the old warrior had not seen the Dom-shu woman since she’d departed for Hylo.

Pagas ordered his men to pursue the defeated nomads. Another landed horde, the Firebrands, marched half a day behind the Panthers. When they arrived, the Firebrands would occupy the site of Juramona and await new orders.

Once these dispositions had been made, Pagas dismounted. He drew his warrior’s dagger and held it aloft in salute.

“My lord,” he piped, reddening at the sound of his voice, “I pledge my honor and loyalty to you! Command us, and we shall follow you, even into the Abyss!”

It was a stirring pledge, but Tol heard none of it. Leaning against Egrin’s war-horse, he’d passed out cold.

Chapter 11

SMALL ASSISTANCE

How could the same journey take twice as long on the return trip? This question was much on Kiya’s mind as she finally reached the fringes of the Eastern Hundred, on her way back to Tol.

She had arrived in Hylo City after a difficult three-day journey. At one point, surrounded by nomads, she had her pony galloping flat-out through a forest of ferns. The jeering plainsmen took her for an Ergothian, fleeing for her life. Kiya would never forget the looks on their faces when she pulled out her saber, unintentionally concealed by her rough woolen cloak. She relieved one nomad of his right arm and sent him flying from his horse. The barbarian on her left reached for his sword, and received Kiya’s point in the throat.

The remaining nomads fell back, regrouped, and came on again, cursing instead of laughing. She wove through the trees, dodging arrows. She hoped her pursuers would get careless and tangle with a sapling, but the nomads were born to the saddle and maneuvered skillfully around every tree.

She finally escaped them by resorting to a deed so outrageous it paralyzed her enemies with astonishment. She found herself on a bluff overlooking the Old Port Water, the stream that flowed north into the kender town of the same name. She was trapped, with a twenty-pace drop to the water before her and jeering nomads close behind. Her pursuers pulled up and approached at a trot.

Kiya was out of ideas – save one. Whipping her cloak over her pony’s head, so he wouldn’t shy, she thumped her heels hard into his flanks. He bolted forward. His hooves thumped a handful of times on the turf, then horse and woman sailed into space, turning a slow somersault on their way down to the slow-flowing water.

She knew the river was deep near the town of Old Port. Seagoing ships often sheltered there when storms raked Hylo Bay. The question in Kiya’s mind during her breathless plummet was, was she downstream far enough for the deep water? If not, her life would soon be over.

The pony hit the green water half a heartbeat ahead of the Dom-shu woman. A tall fountain of spray shot skyward. Kiya landed feet first, and the impact numbed her legs all the way to her hips. Down she plunged, deeper and deeper. Deep enough – now, back to the surface!

Kiya swam to the north shore. The pony was there already, thrashing its way up the mudflat. The nomads on the bluff finally overcame their shock and sent some arrows flickering toward her, but these landed in the water far behind.

The remainder of her journey to Hylo City was not only dull but frustrating. The kender capital lay northwest, she knew, but the few kender she encountered as she made her way through the countryside either shunned her, or gave conflicting directions. That was only the beginning of her frustrations with the kender.

An entire day had been required to persuade Queen Casberry to lend aid. The kender queen looked exactly as Kiya remembered her from their last meeting more than a decade and a half before. Tiny, even by the standards of her race, Casberry’s face was seamed by a thousand fine lines, like an apple left too long in the sun. Her hair was snowy white, pulled back in a tight bun, but her brilliant green eyes were lively as a child’s. Kiya couldn’t even begin to guess her age.

Casberry explained (at length) that she held Lord Tolandruth in high esteem for vanquishing the monster XimXim and for clearing her country of Tarsan mercenaries. Because of this high regard, she would join the fight against the nomads for a mere one hundred gold pieces per day.

Lacking her sister’s patience and skill at haggling, Kiya simply agreed and insisted they depart the next morning. The matriarch waved aside this ridiculous deadline. The Royal Loyal Militia must be given time to assemble.

Casberry made no proclamations, sent forth no heralds, yet in two days’ time a large number of kender gathered in the square before the royal residence (a dilapidated three-story house no one could call a palace). To Kiya’s jaundiced eye, the Royal Loyal Militia resembled a market day mob more than a military force. Their uniforms comprised matching green leggings and scale shirts; the remainder of their attire followed no pattern at all. Most of the kender were armed with short swords, but Kiya saw some carrying bows and a few bearing swords obviously sized for beings at least twice their height. Still, they were what Tol wanted, and Kiya vowed she would deliver them, come what may.

Now, three days into the return journey, they had at last reached the Eastern Hundred. The slowness of the return had nothing to do with the nomads – they had encountered none thus far – and everything to do with Queen Casberry and the Army of Hylo.

In addition to the Royal Loyal Militia, the queen was accompanied by her Household Guard, a band even more Unlikely than the Royal Loyals. The Householders, some two hundred strong, were foreigners, hired blades of dubious distinction, whose ranks included humans, kender from outside Hylo, a dwarf healer who prescribed potatoes for every injury or ailment, and a centaur standard bearer whose stench was so strong he was made to march at the rear, defeating the purpose of giving him the banner of Hylo in the first place, although no one would dream of hurting his feelings by asking him to relinquish it, Casberry said. The Householders were armed with whatever they fancied: spears, axes, swords, even garden rakes. When Kiya saw a group shouldering push brooms, she protested.

“They’re Outlanders, too poor to pay for weapons,” Casberry explained. In fact, she’d been throwing dice with the foreign kender and had won all their money. They’d pawned their arms to eat.

“Don’t you pay them?” Kiya asked, growing tired of endless kender peculiarities.

“I pay them to march and fight. If they don’t march or fight, they don’t get paid. Next payday’s not till New Moon Day, though.”

The Household Guard marched directly behind the queen. After them came the Royal Loyal Militia, whose exact number Kiya had given up trying to calculate. Kender soldiers left when the mood struck and rejoined the column later, coming and going whenever they pleased. Kiya estimated there were between four and five hundred of these erratic kender.

Even more than the lackadaisical habits of the kender or the innumerable chests of flamboyant attire Casberry insisted on carting along, it was the Royal Conveyance that kept their progress to a crawl.

The Royal Conveyance, the only way Queen Casberry would travel, was a sedan chair borne on the shoulders of two identically brawny humans she called Front and Back. One was dark-skinned and wore a gold headband. The other was fair-haired and sported a bull tattoo on his chest. Kiya wasn’t sure which was which. Perhaps it depended upon who was leading and who was following. The sedan chair itself was made of oak and cedar, ornately carved, inlaid with gold, and very heavy.

With Kiya in the lead – and leading kender was like herding squirrels – the Army of Hylo had wound its way through the hills and forests of the kender realm and into the Eastern Hundred. Once within the empire, they saw ample signs the nomad raiders had passed by but encountered no resistance. One battle-shocked Ergothian farmer, picking through the remains of his home, spied the Household Guard and fled, screaming. Kiya knew exactly how he felt.

Scouting ahead, the Dom-shu woman paused by a wide stream. Her pony lowered its head to drink. Sunshine sparkled off the flowing water as it rippled over well-worn boulders. The opposite bank was dotted with trees. Although not the friendly giants of her home, the slender poplars and oaks still allowed Kiya to imagine herself back in the Great Green where life made sense, with the cool green of trees above her and the softness of moss and fallen leaves beneath her bare feet.

From her mounted vantage, she spotted the telltale yellow soil of the Eastern Hundred, exposed several paces downstream. She urged her horse in that direction and found a wide trail trampled into the green turf. Horsemen had been through here. Many horsemen, and not long ago.

There was a matching trail on the other side of the creek. The riders had come from the east. As no organized bodies of imperial troops occupied the region, the horsemen must have been nomads. Kiya had to warn Casberry their enemies were near.

Then a remarkable thing happened. The sky was a clear blue, dotted with only a few small, puffy white clouds, but a thunderclap of considerable strength suddenly rolled over the woodland. The sound was strong enough to frighten a flock of birds into taking wing and cause Kiya’s pony to shy.

At the spot where Kiya had watered her horse were four of Casberry’s Householders. A human and a kender were filling waterskins. Another kender stood waist-deep in the stream searching (he said) for gold; a second human was staring nervously at the sky. All had heard the thunderclap.

Kiya sent the nervous human jogging off to warn the queen of nomads in the area. She sent the other Householders back to the column. All went except the gold prospector. That kender, his large ears protruding like window shutters, turned his head slowly from side to side.

“I hear horses,” he announced.

Kiya drew her sword. Before she could ask where the sound was coming from, a gust of wind rushed through the trees, causing her horse to shy again, and three riders burst from the trees on the western bank.

The three were nomads, dressed in buckskins and woven twig armor. They were bent low over their mounts’ necks, horses galloping hard. Two swung wide and rode around the sword-wielding Dom-shu woman without even pausing.

Startled by this tactic, Kiya concentrated on the remaining fellow. His horse reared when she slashed at him. She missed the man but cut his reins, and he toppled backward into the water. In the blink of an eye, his horse was gone, galloping after the other two.

Jumping from her horse, Kiya pressed her saber to the fallen nomad’s throat.

He threw up his hands and cried, “Save me!” With a terrified glance not at his conqueror, but at the shore from whence he’d come, he added, “We were attacked by fell magic!”

She dragged the gibbering man back to her companions, put him in the care of two kender from the Household Guard, then told the queen what had happened.

Casberry, clad in a brilliant, pink-and-gold striped shirt, squinted down at the prisoner from the extra height afforded her by the Royal Conveyance. In response to her high-pitched, imperious demand, the nomad told his tale.

The nomad and his comrades from the Skyhorse tribe had been foraging when they came upon a stone blockhouse by the Juramona road. These blockhouses, dotting the roads at regular intervals, were meant to serve as havens for imperial couriers. The Skyhorse men knew such couriers carried fine weapons and gold. The door was bolted from the inside, so they surrounded the blockhouse and yelled at its occupants to surrender. No one answered.

Undeterred, the nomads were gathering kindling so they could burn the wooden door when a clap of thunder sounded from the clear sky. The four of their number nearest the door were knocked flat by the blast. The others tried to come to their aid, but the windfall kindling they’d been collecting suddenly leaped into the air and hurled itself at them. When stones loosened themselves from the ground and joined the barrage, the nomads fled.

“Your Majesty, we should investigate,” Kiya said. “Someone important may be inside this blockhouse.” Only the rich or the noble could afford to have a mage in such a place.

Casberry tapped a long, bony finger against her yellow teeth. The map of fine lines on her wizened face lifted. “Might be a reward in it,” she mused. “I’ll go myself. Pick up your feet, Front and Back!”

The nomad captive was left to six Hyloans, who wrestled the prisoner to the ground. He flailed his arms and legs, but several kender sat on him as others tore off his clothes. Howling curses, the nomad promised terrible retribution for any violence done to him. The kender ignored him. When he was stripped to the skin and pinned to the ground on his back, a pot of red paint was produced, along with several brushes. The kender proceeded to paint the man red from head to toe.

When they were done, they released him. He rolled quickly to his feet.

“Is that it?” He laughed nervously. “Is that all?”

Kiya suppressed a shudder. “It’s enough. Look.”

The nomad peered at his reflection in the creek. The red paint, together with his pale blond hair, made him look like some insane wraith. Splashing water on himself, he quickly discovered the paint would not come off. He scrubbed himself with handfuls of sand, but the result was same.

This was the punishment known in Hylo as the “Judgment of the True Skin,” usually inflicted on kender who refused to leave home and wander as royal law prescribed. The paint was said to be permanent, but knowing how the little people exaggerated, Kiya reckoned it would probably wear off in a few days or weeks. Still, it was not an experience she cared to have. Anyone the nomad encountered would flee in horror at the sight of him, if they didn’t slay him as a monster first.

The man had begun to draw blood with his vigorous scrubbing, and he continued to scream at them all. Kiya pointed her sword at him and told him to go. To emphasize her words, the kender began tossing mud from the creekbank at the painted man.

“You’re crazy!” the nomad shrieked, backing away. “All of you – you’re crazy!”

“Crazy as kender,” Kiya agreed.

Defeated, humiliated, he scrambled up the opposite shore and crashed away through the underbrush. They could measure the naked man’s progress by the curses that echoed through the trees every time he encountered a thorny obstacle.

Casberry’s army meanwhile straggled onward through the woods. The slender trees finally thinned, revealing the imperial road from Caergoth to Hylo, called by many the Plucked Path. It had been built by ogre slaves, who literally tore trees out of the ground with their hands. Not a paved road like the Ackal Path, its surface was dirt, layered with crushed seashells brought all the way from the Gulf of Ergoth.

Before her mount broke through the trees onto the road, the Dom-shu woman heard loud voices ahead. She tapped heels to her pony’s sides, wondering what new insanity she was about to experience.

Casberry’s bearers stood in the center of the road. The kender queen was leaning forward in her chair, shaking a finger at a gray granite blockhouse and demanding its occupant come out. Around her chair gathered the humans and kender of her Household Guard. Royal Loyals lolled in the greenery on either side of the path.

The blockhouse was a massive structure, two stories high, with a flat roof and arrow slits for windows. The only entrance faced the road and was a squat door of dark oak, strapped with bronze plates. A scattering of broken kindling, and the tracks left by nomad horses supported the story told them by the painted man.

Kiya rode closer to the door and hallooed loudly. A faint stirring sounded from within.

“Are you Ergothian?” she called. “Don’t be afraid! We go to join the army of Lord Tolandruth, camped at Juramona!”

More sounds of movement within, but no response. Kiya dismounted. The door was inset within the large blocks. She glanced at the motley bunch at her back and added, “This is the army of Queen Casberry, of Hylo. They’ve come as allies of the empire.”

Go away!

Flinching, Kiya backed up a step. The whispery, insistent voice seemed to come from right beside her.

Depart now. Go at once!

The command had the opposite effect on the stubborn Dom-shu. She hammered on the bronze door plates with her sword pommel and demanded that whoever was inside come out. Each blow boomed hollowly. The papery voice did not speak again.

Casberry appeared at Kiya’s side. So quietly did she move the Dom-shu had no notion of her presence until, drawing back her arm for another blow, she smacked the queen on the top of the head.

Kiya apologized. “I’m afraid it would take a battering ram to get this door open!”

The queen planted bony fists on her hips and took in the door and surrounding structure with a narrow-eyed glare. “I’ll get us in,” she announced. Turning, she shouted, “Bonny Waterwide! You and Rufus, come here.”

Two kender emerged from the soft ferns. Bonny Water-wide was rather tall (for a kender), wearing a leather vest and trousers and sporting blue-black hair gathered into a long topknot. Rufus had short, spiky red hair framing a pale face. He was spinning a toy top on the palm of his hand.

“First one of you to get in there gets a gold piece,” the queen said.

“Three gold pieces,” countered Bonny promptly.

“Two gold pieces.”

“Two gold pieces, and I get to ride in your chair for a day.”

The queen made a face, but agreed.

Bonny grinned, showing long, yellow teeth. “Done!”

Their haggling complete, Rufus quickly began his assault on the blockhouse. Inserting his fingers and bare toes into various arrow slits, he managed to climb the sloping wall to the roof. He lifted the cap off the chimney and climbed down into the flue.

“Good job!” Kiya said.

Hardly had the words left her mouth when a loud yell reverberated from the chimney. Thinking poor Rufus was being gutted, Kiya started for the bolted door, but Casberry’s tiny hand closed around her wrist.

“Wait,” the queen said.

A gout of soot erupted from the chimney. Simultaneously, a loud boom sounded and a red-haired projectile shot skyward. Rufus hit the top of a larch tree, then descended, flopping from branch to branch, finally landing in a cloud of soot on the wildflowers beside the road. After an instant of surprised silence, nearby kender cheered. A Royal Loyal rolled Rufus over and announced he still breathed, but was out cold.

A tapping, pinging sound brought attention back to the blockhouse. Bonny Waterwide had been busy gathering shell fragments from the road and now was tossing these, one at a time, at the structure. Several pieces flew through the arrow slits.

Keeping up the odd bombardment, she stealthily approached the door. She drew a metal object from her scabbard, not a thin sword but a slender iron rod.

In between tossing her seashell fragments, Bonny measured off a section of the rod, then bent it, with some difficulty, over her knee. She spaced off a longer length and bent the rod again at a different angle.

Kiya queried the queen with a glance. Casberry merely looked wise.

Bonny tossed all her remaining shells up the side of the blockhouse. They cascaded down, bouncing and clicking off the close-fitting stone blocks. Before the sound died, she had slipped the rod under the door and twisted it upwards. She stepped down hard on the upraised end of the rod. There was a distinct clank as the door was lifted up slightly, and then Bonny pushed the portal inward.

With a whoop, Kiya rushed forward, sword out. Much of the Household Guard followed.

A wall of wind erupted from the dark interior, sweeping Bonny off her feet. The larger, heavier Kiya leaned into the blast. With great effort, she dragged her feet forward until she could grasp the doorjamb. A lone figure stood inside the blockhouse. The only illumination came from the arrow slits, striping the interior with narrow lanes of dark and light.

The gusting wind suddenly eased, and curious kender scrambled past Kiya. The wind died completely when two knelt on all fours behind the stranger while others bowled him over. Like a pack of puppies, the kender swarmed over the fallen man. Kiya’s sword was at his throat in the next moment.

“Peace, peace! I am not your enemy!” he cried.

Kiya seized him by the front of his robe and shoved him outside into the sunlight.

With much injured dignity, he swept shell fragments and dirt from his red silk robe. He was a tall fellow, and thin, with tightly curled sand-colored hair and a short beard. Every finger bore an ornate, jeweled ring.

“There’s no need for violence,” the Red Robe said. “I told you, I’m not your enemy!”

“That’s for us to decide. Who are you?” asked Kiya.

He refused to say. Several kender hands began reaching for his rings, and he drew back, closing his fists tightly. “Each and every ring is warded! Touch them, and there will be dire consequences!”

Now he had his audience’s undivided attention. The kender demanded they be allowed to see “dire consequences” immediately. Only Kiya’s threats silenced them long enough for her to continue her questioning. The wizard still would not tell her anything about himself or his purpose, but kept insisting he was not their enemy.

He began fingering the large opal ring on his left forefinger. The kender perked up, obviously hoping for a dire consequence, but Kiya laid the flat of her sword tip on his wrist.

“Stop what you’re doing, or I’ll chop off your hands.”

Her calmly delivered threat shook him, but he hissed, “You have no idea who you’re meddling with, barbarian!”

“No, I don’t. So tell me your name.”

Heavy silence ensued. Surrounded by armed, insatiably curious kender and a forester woman with a thirsty blade, and with bands of hostile nomads in the vicinity, the Red Robe made his decision.

“I am Helbin, chosen chief of the Red Robes of Daltigoth. You mentioned Lord Tolandruth; you may take me to him.”

Kiya recognized his name. “You’re not one of Husband’s enemies,” she said, sheathing her sword. “What are you doing so far from the city?”

“I cannot divulge my purpose, except to Lord Tolandruth himself.” \ par Kiya shrugged, secure in the knowledge that Tol would know how to handle the mage.

After Helbin gathered his possessions and was put under guard, the army prepared to move on. Several kender lifted the still-groggy, soot-covered Rufus onto a horse. Casberry returned to her sedan chair. Immediately an argument erupted between the queen and Bonny Waterwide. Bonny claimed her payment of a day’s ride in the Royal Conveyance. The queen reminded her no particular day had been specified.

“So you’ll just have to wait,” Casberry finished with a satisfied smile.

When they were finally underway, Kiya ruminated on the fact that half a dozen nomads had failed to draw the wizard from his hiding place, but a single kender had succeeded. Maybe Tol’s idea to recruit Casberry and her army wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed. But what was Helbin doing in these parts? Whether or not he was a respectable member of the Red Robe order, Kiya distrusted anyone from Daltigoth. In her opinion, people from the capital were either Ackal V’s lackeys or his collaborators.

She would keep an eye on Helbin. At the first hint of treachery, she would act. There would be no humiliating red paint for the Red Robe. If he played her false, he would die.

Chapter 12

A FATAL SLIP

The bakali were across the Dalti.

The news flashed through the streets and squares of Daltigoth. No one knew who first delivered the awful tidings, but within a day, everyone in the capital had heard them. Prices of food, wine, cloth, leather, and other commodities tripled in a single day. A family’s carefully horded savings evaporated before their eyes. For the common folk of Daltigoth, there was only one recourse: they rioted.

Hundreds of people spilled out into the streets and market squares, smashing sellers’ stands and assaulting merchants. The city guards were quickly overwhelmed. In the Canal District, warehouses were broken open and looted. This encouraged hundreds more to take to the streets and make their way to the waterfront to join the plundering.

Ackal V, wrapped in furs despite the summer heat, listened stone-faced as anxious representatives of the merchants’ guilds recited the growing chronicle of lawlessness. When they finished, silence descended on the audience hall. The interval lengthened, grew awkward, and the guildmasters and merchants nervously shuffled their feet.

“Summon the city garrison, Your Majesty!” urged the chief of the goldsmiths. “Give the rioters a taste of imperial iron!”

Still, Ackal V said nothing. He seemed lost in a dream, eyes staring into the distance. Valaran, seated at his side, prompted him almost inaudibly. Her veil, white this time, allowed her to do this without attracting the notice of the assembled commoners. Ackal V glanced at her and smiled. The empress drew in a breath. The closest ranks of petitioners recoiled from the deceptively benign expression on Ackal V’s face. They knew only too well that when the emperor smiled, blood would flow.

“The garrison is arrayed to protect the Inner City,” he said. “There it will remain.”

The merchants and guildmasters dared not protest. Valaran did so on their behalf, albeit most tactfully, her voice low.

“Sire, please reconsider. The safety of the city depends on order being kept.”

“Oh, I shall put Daltigoth in order.” He raised his voice. “Tathman! Captain Tathman, where are you?”

The Wolf stepped forward and bowed stiffly.

“Captain, you and the Wolves will stop the rioting,” Ackal V said simply.

Equally simple was the reply: “As you wish, Majesty.”

Tathman’s sepulchral voice always made the hair on Valaran’s neck rise. The assembled guildmasters were stricken. The thought of the Emperor’s Wolves set loose on the city stunned and terrified all.

The emperor said, “You want order, don’t you? You want an end to the looting, don’t you? My Wolves will pacify the city in one day – maybe less.”

They had come to beg for protection, so the merchants and tradesmen could hardly protest, yet all knew the Wolves were capable of any atrocity. Recruited from the poorest, most distant provinces of the empire, they owed nothing to Daltigoth and everything to their patron.

Ackal V stood abruptly. In a body the guildmasters shrank back from him.

“You see? You have only to ask, and your emperor responds!” He folded his arms and glowered down at the cowering men. His words laced with irony, he added, “I know you’re anxious to return to your shops. Go, and spread the word that peace will soon return to the city – peace guaranteed by the Emperor’s Wolves.”

They managed to depart without actually trampling each other, but no one could mistake their desire to be elsewhere.

Ackal nodded to Tathman. The captain and the other Wolves followed the guildmasters and merchants out.

The next order of business was the emperor’s council with his warlords. Lackeys struggled forward with a carpet-sized map of the land east of Eagle’s Ford. They unrolled it at the emperor’s feet, and the leaders of the Great Horde lined up along the map’s edges. The warlords saluted Ackal V, but there was a notable lack of fervor in their greeting.

Consternation gripped Valaran as she realized she didn’t recognize a single face among them. The warlords from her first husband’s reign were gone – slain by bakali or nomads, or executed by their own emperor for failing to win victories. Only two commanders of experience remained, Lord Tremond and Lord Regobart. Tremond governed the city of Thorngoth, on the south coast. He and his hordes guarded the mouth of the Thorn River, doorway to the heartland of the empire. Regobart commanded the garrison at Six Dunes, the imperial fortress near Tarsis. The empire’s longtime enemy had been quiet so far, but Ackal V did not dare withdraw Regobart’s hordes, for fear the Tarsans would join against the empire.

Most of the new warlords were quite young. There were a few graybeards, men loyal to the Ackal line who’d been recalled from home and hearth to serve in this time of crisis. But not one of them had ever commanded more than a handful of hordes, much less an army.

“The enemy is across the Dalti,” Ackal V said, his matter-of-fact tone at odds with the frightening news. “Their strength and purpose are unknown. Where and how do we destroy them, my lords?”

One of the graybeards, Andruth by name, stepped forward. “Your Majesty, we have twenty hordes concentrated at Verdant Isle.” He bent stiffly and placed a fist-sized onyx token on the map at a spot some five leagues from the capital. “Twelve more are coming down from the Northern Hundred under Lord Ducarrel, and eight are mustered at Bengoth. Lord Crumont’s army has fallen back to the Ackal Path to defend the capital.” Andruth set more tokens down at those spots.

“A line two hundred leagues long and only ninety-eight hordes to defend it?”

Andruth scrubbed his iron-colored beard and exchanged a look with several of his older comrades.

The emperor knew the meaning of that look. “I will not call up the landed hordes! Fat landowners and their sheep-herder minions! I might as well cast the crown of my ancestors into the gutter and be done with it!”

“Majesty, the landed hordes are loyal to the empire.”

Valaran admired the old general’s nerve. His well-chosen words were a veiled reproofs – loyal to Ergoth did not necessarily mean loyal to Ackal V.

“In the reigns of my uncle and father, of unfortunate name” — the emperor meant Pakin II and III — “landed hordes fought against the dynasty and for the line of the usurpers.”

Many provincial hordes had indeed aligned themselves with the Pakin Pretender. That was ancient history to everyone but Ackal V.

Andruth nodded, “Few warriors from those days remain, Majesty. There are over one hundred and fifty landed hordes available. They need only be summoned to service.”

Ackal kicked over the onyx marker signifying the troops at Verdant Isle. “Mention those traitors again and I’ll have your tongue out!” he snarled. Andruth firmed his lips and said no more.

“Send couriers to the Seascapes and the Southwest Hundred,” Ackal V said, resuming his seat. “Muster every imperial horde in both provinces and march them” — he looked at the map — “to Gaer.”

This was a small town in the fertile, forested triangle between the Thorn and Dalti rivers, southwest of the city. Scribes took down the emperor’s order, and couriers were dispatched immediately.

The warlords took turns describing the progress of the bakali through the open country northeast of the capital. Following their usual pattern, the lizard-men moved in a tight column, driving out every human they encountered.

Thousands of refugees were streaming south, to Daltigoth, seeking protection. So far the enemy was moving more west than south, toward the hill country between the capital and Ropunt Forest. There would seem to be nothing there to entice them – no cities, not even many farms. The council listened to learned sages from the College of Wizards speculate on the bakali’s goals, but in the end, no one could say with confidence what the lizard-men would do.

A courier arrived, and hurried to whisper in Andruth’s ear. The old warrior said, “Your Majesty, there is news from the east – a messenger from the governor of Caergoth!”

The messenger came forward. Although exhausted and still covered by the dust of his journey, he saluted his emperor smartly.

“Wornoth, by Your Majesty’s grace Governor of Caergoth and Marshal of the Plains Hundred, sends you greetings,” the messenger declaimed.

He then described rather grim conditions in Caergoth. The city was strongly held by eleven hordes, but food was in short supply as marauding nomads had cut off incoming supplies.

The emperor appeared bored by another litany of trouble, but the courier’s final piece of news pierced his disinterest.

“There is good news Your Majesty! We have word of a victory over the plainsmen!” Surprise rippled through the council. “Lord Wornoth has it on good authority that the raiding tribes of Chief Tokasin were defeated near the razed town of Juramona.”

The name of Tol’s hometown made Valaran’s pulse quicken.

“Who has done this? What general? What hordes?” Ackal V queried sharply.

The courier flushed. “Nothing more is known, Your Majesty. Foragers from Caergoth caught some nomads fleeing south. Lord Wornoth had them questioned. Under torture the savages admitted that their chief, Tokasin, had led some four or five thousand plainsmen to Juramona to destroy a band of Ergothians. Instead, he was himself destroyed!”

“Andruth, what imperial troops remain in the vicinity?” the emperor asked.

The old general, lately come to his post, plainly didn’t know. “They could he remnants of Lord Bessian’s men.”

The courier shook his head. “Forgive me, Majesty, great lords, but the nomads said the Ergothians were not Riders of the Great Horde. They fought on foot.”

Astonishment gusted through the audience hall. Valaran, found her husband glaring at her. His thoughts were plainly the same as hers, only far less kindly intended.

“Where’s Winath?” Ackal shouted. “Send the Mistress of the White Robes forward!”

Steady old Winath slipped through the press of armored warlords. She looked small among such company, but carried herself with great poise.

“Old woman,” Ackal said, “scry for me what’s happening at Juramona. Put all your sages to work on this. Nothing else is important right now.”

“Yes, Majesty.” After a brief pause, she added, “We’ve not had much success scrying the distant provinces, sire. An unknown power obscures every scene, like a wall of fog.”

The emperor’s eyes were hard. “Your failures interest me not at all, White Robe. Find out what I want to know, or give way to someone who can.”

Winath understood him perfectly. If she did not succeed, she would face the same gruesome death as her predecessor, Oropash.

As the wizard departed, Valaran, claiming fatigue, excused herself. She exited slowly and with all decorum, but outside the audience hall, she dismissed her escorts and hurried up a small, hidden staircase that led to the rear of the imperial library.

A male scribe working within uttered a startled squeak as he beheld the empress’s entrance. He fled as the law required, and the other scribes likewise abandoned the library. As the main doors banged shut behind them, she knew she need not fear interruption.

She flipped her veil back over her head. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she took down the cedarwood chest that held the Ergothinia and quickly freed the magic mirror from its hiding place. She lifted its lid, but only her own wide, shadowed eyes stared back at her from the mirror’s perfect surface.

“Where are you, wizard?” she hissed. “I must speak with you!”

She continued her attempts to contact him until the lamp’s oil was exhausted and the smoky yellow flame went out. Helbin never appeared. Valaran slammed the mirror box shut, all but cracking the precious glass with the force of her frustration.

Where was Helbin? He was supposed to remain at Tuva’s Blockhouse on the Plucked Path, keeping watch on the advancing bakali, while waiting for Lord Tolandruth to appear from the east. Valaran had no doubt the victory at Juramona was Tol’s doing. Only he could lead foot soldiers successfully against swarms of horsemen. But where in Chaos’s name was Helbin?

Valaran took a deep breath, mastering her emotions. She had to maintain her poise, or Ackal V would know his suspicions were correct. He would know Tol was back in the empire. There could be any number of innocent reasons for Helbin’s silence. He might be involved in an incantation, or perhaps he’d left the blockhouse for a short time and not taken his mirror.

Or perhaps he’d been detected! The wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery had not gained their places by being foolish. Winath’s people might have found Helbin and neutralized his activities. He might even have fallen victim to random brigands or nomads.

She returned the mirror box to the cedar case, and the case to its place on the shelf. Her fears were pointless. Whether Helbin was lost, she certainly was not. She had many resources, her design would go forward. As long as there was breath in her body, she would not give up.

And what of Zala? The half-breed had had plenty of time to find Tol, and perhaps she had succeeded. Valaran could easily imagine Tol, upon learning of his hometown’s fall, rushing there to rally the survivors in the province. It would be a logical step, and an honorable one, just like him. It also would explain both Zala’s tardiness and the unexpected victory over Tokasin’s rampaging tribesmen.

For the first time in weeks, Valaran smiled. Even now Tol might be on his way to her.

She seated herself at a nearby table. Taking a fresh page of vellum and a sharp quill from the small store on the table, she unfastened the pendant from around her neck.

The pendant was a rose, wrought in silver, three finger-widths wide. Hollow, it was actually a tiny flask. Such trinkets were nothing out of the ordinary – two other intricately worked pendants had been made for the empress, to hold the scents she preferred. Valaran had chosen the innocuous silver rose to hold not perfume but a special ink. She’d learned of this unique fluid while reading the private memoirs of the Empress Yetai, chief consort of Emperor Ackal III.

She opened the tiny concealed cap and dipped a nib in the ink. On touching the page, the colorless ink turned pale lavender. Valaran wrote swiftly. As the ink dried, it faded from sight, and would become visible again only when the letter was held in steam containing certain herbs. Empress Yetai had used the vanishing ink to communicate with her lover, Lord Gonz Hellmann, as they plotted the murder of her husband.

Valaran preferred not to dwell upon the final fate of Yetai: betrayed by her lover to save his own life, the long-ago empress had been found guilty of treason and executed by her husband.

The note was addressed to her chief agent in the city. The plan is progressing, she wrote. The Wolves are coming, but do not fear. Proceed as you have been doing. Our reward comes soon.

Even with the concealment of Yetai’s ink, she kept her words vague. After adding some coded details about money and arms, she turned the parchment over and wrote on the other side, in normal ink, an innocent order for writing supplies for the imperial library. The order would be delivered to the Scriveners’ Hall today, where her minion would pass it along to its true recipient, who knew how to uncover the secret message.

Valaran tucked the sealed missive into the sleeve of her gown. In the corridor outside the library she encountered the chief White Robe, Winath.

The wizard greeted her. “Seeking a palimpsest?” Valaran asked.

“No, Majesty, I seek you.”

Valaran offered her chilliest royal smile – lips firmly together, eyes half-closed – as she looked down at the older woman. “Yes?”

At the wizard’s suggestion they moved away from the library entrance. Once they turned the corner into a narrow side passage, Valaran heard the pack of impatient scribes scurrying back into the library.

Satisfied they were alone, Winath said, “Majesty, I have recently come across some writings of my predecessor, Yoralyn. I think they offer insight into the current crisis.”

Valaran could think of numerous crises facing them just now, but she merely waited for the White Robe to continue.

“The inability of our scryers to observe the doings of the bakali has always smacked of interference, Majesty. Now I am sure of it.”

Alarmed but outwardly composed, Valaran prompted her with a nod.

Winath lowered her voice even further. “Has Your Majesty ever heard of a millstone?” Valaran said she had not. “It’s an artifact, made by the ancient Irda race, for protection against magic,” Winath explained. “It works, so the old books say, like a sponge, absorbing all ethereal power it encounters.”

Although an interesting fact to Valaran the scholar, Valaran the empress could see no point to this conversation about a legendary artifact. She allowed her impatience to show.

Winath added quickly, “Majesty, according to Yoralyn’s papers, Lord Tolandruth possessed just such an artifact!”

Not even Valaran’s great self-possession could withstand that revelation. Astonishment bloomed on her face. The old woman’s words explained so much that Valaran instantly believed her claim.

Years ago, Tol and Val had enjoyed trysts in the garden of the wizards’ college, despite the barrier spells that protected it. As long as Valaran was with Tol, she could pass through the spells without hindrance. She’d asked him about his ability, but he would say only that knowing the secret would endanger her. He’d also survived every murder attempt by the rogue wizard Mandes, when others fell like autumn leaves around him. People said Lord Tolandruth possessed the gods’ own luck. Perhaps it was not luck, but the ancient knowledge of the Irda that protected him!

“Majesty,” Winath said loudly, interrupting Valaran’s thoughts. “I feel it must be the millstone that obstructs our efforts to spy upon the bakali. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Valaran did not understand the old wizard’s apology.

“Sorry to be the one who tells you that Lord Tolandruth must be collaborating with the enemy.”

The statement was so absurdly wrong Valaran almost laughed. Poor Winath. Although a notable scholar, she had never really been groomed for leadership. When it came to politics, she was out of her depth.

“Majesty, Lord Tolandruth must have turned against the empire out of hatred for his humiliation and exile.”

Valaran’s slow nod hid her racing thoughts. A chilling realization suddenly came to her. Maintaining her regal mask, she said, “Have you told anyone else about this, Winath?”

“No, Majesty. Yoralyn’s manuscripts are protected by grievous wards. Only the chief of the order has the power to read them.” A dark shadow passed over the wizard’s lined face. “Oropash must have known – may he rest in the arms of Draco Paladine.”

“You have not approached the emperor?”

Winath looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Such a powerful artifact should not fall into the wrong hands,” she replied carefully.

The empress agreed, and Winath relaxed. “Majesty,” she asked, “what should be done about this?”

Valaran linked her arm in the old woman’s. The wizard was startled by the intimate gesture. As Valaran began to walk, the White Robe accompanied her.

“That is indeed the question: what is to be done with this knowledge?” Valaran murmured. After a thoughtful pause, she asked, “You’ve had no success piercing the veil surrounding the bakali?”

Winath admitted they had not. Even attempts to scry ahead and behind the field of obscurity, thereby detecting the direction of the enemy, had yielded contradictory and unhelpful results.

The two women mounted the winding stairs leading to the servants’ quarters. It was midafternoon, and the warren of rooms was empty.

“Is it possible, Winath, that the veil over the bakali is a simple ward, well cast by a powerful magician?”

“It’s possible, Majesty, but there aren’t many who could work so deep and long-lasting a spell.”

“Could you?”

Winath shook her head, looking somewhat regretful. “My specialty is language and conjuration. I was never strong with wards. Yoralyn was a powerful wardmaster, as was Helbin.”

The White Robe glanced at the empress, but she did not seem especially disturbed by mention of the Red Robe, branded a traitor and coward by the emperor.

A whiff of smoke came to them. They were passing a window slit in the circular stairwell. Valaran glanced out and saw plumes of gray smoke rising from various parts of the city.

“Helbin, you say?” she murmured. “He disappeared, yes?”

“Yes, Majesty. Before the bakali reached Caergoth, he stole out of the city and fled. The Red Robes searched for a time, but Helbin is clever. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”

Winath stopped abruptly. “By all the gods! Helbin! Majesty, do you think he —?”

“Why not? You said he was skilled at warding.”

“But why would Helbin aid the bakali?”

The empress did not reply. They had reached the top of the spiraling stair, a turret on the roof of the palace. Still linked arm in arm with the White Robe, Valaran said, “Come, let me show you something.”

They went out onto the narrow balcony that encircled the turret. The balcony was protected by a low parapet. From here, the vast panorama of the imperial capital spread out beneath them. Four distinct columns of smoke rose from the sprawling collection of buildings, and the wind brought the sound of harsh voices, the clatter of arms, and the screams of the angry and anguished.

“The city is reeling,” Valaran said sadly, “like the empire. What has taken two centuries to create could be lost in our lifetime, Winath, unless we are prepared to fight for it.”

“Of course, Majesty.” Winath gripped the empress’s arm with both hands.

Valaran’s voice hardened. “The emperor is more than a cruel tyrant. He is mad. Not like my late husband, the unfortunate Ackal IV. He lost his wits completely. No, Ackal V knows exactly what he is doing, and he chooses the path that most gratifies his lusts. Do you understand?”

“No, I’m sorry. Majesty, let’s go back inside, please.”

“I have suffered many outrages, to my person and my lineage. When the bakali appeared on our border, I took them for a sign from the gods. They would be my instrument for removing Ackal V from the throne of Ergoth.”

The wizard’s face was ashen, and not from fear of the height.

Valaran added, “It was I who sent Helbin out of Daltigoth. And Helbin, not Lord Tolandruth, raised the veil over the bakali.”

Her eyes were distant, clouded by emotions Winath couldn’t read. “To save a dying man, it is often necessary to administer very strong medicine, unpleasant though the remedy may be. When the Great Horde is defeated, and the emperor’s authority exhausted, he will be overthrown.”

“That’s treason!”

The strange distance vanished, and Valaran looked down into Winath’s shocked face.

“No,” the empress said firmly. “Patriotic necessity.”

Valaran caught the wizard’s wrists in her hands and pushed her backward to the low parapet. Disbelief showed on Winath’s face for only a heartbeat, then horror suffused her expression. She fought the younger woman, hut was borne inexorably to the edge. They struggled briefly, Winath’s eyes tearing from wind and terror, Valaran grimly determined. All the hate for Ackal V that she’d stored over the years seemed to flow outward through her hands. A final shove, and Winath toppled. White robe fluttering like a moth’s wing, the wizard vanished into the canyon of lower rooftops. Her thin scream was barely audible above the wind.

Valaran was trembling so violently, she had to clutch the parapet to keep herself from falling. She’d had no choice. It had to be done. Winath knew too much. A guileless old woman, she would never have kept Valaran’s secrets, not with the emperor’s spies swarming about.

Shouts echoed from the open stairwell. Valaran turned away from the drop as servants and guards burst out onto the balcony. Seeing the empress, they halted, astonished.

“Your Majesty!” sputtered a guard, lowering his gaze quickly from her unveiled face. “What happened?”

“Winath of the White Robes has killed herself.” She had no need to counterfeit the tremor in her voice. “Unable to find the bakali army, she confessed her fear of the emperor’s punishment and leaped. I could not stop her.”

Still exclaiming in shock, the male guards and servants departed immediately, leaving the women with the empress. A plump, motherly washerwoman looked over the edge, then regarded Valaran with pity.

“How terrible, Majesty! What does this mean?”

Valaran let out a pent-up breath. She lowered the white veil over her face. A part of her mind noted with pride that her hand did not shake. She was Empress of Ergoth. She was equal to the task she had set herself.

“It means,” she said calmly, “the White Robes must choose a new chief.”

Chapter 13

PURSUIT

With a blast of horns, a wall of armed horsemen emerged from the screen of trees. They raised sabers, shouted a war cry, and attacked the slow-moving column.

This time, it was not buckskin-clad nomads sweeping down upon hapless farmers and traders, but Ergothians falling like a thunderbolt upon an assemblage of ox-drawn carts and nomad riders dozing in their saddles. This time, it was the nomads who were caught completely by surprise.

Nomad women and children dropped their scanty baggage and scattered. What few warriors there were turned to face the Ergothians, lashing their ponies forward.

The fight was over in moments. The plainsmen were overwhelmed, and their terrified families were rounded up. Horses and weapons were stripped away. Children cried and babies howled. Ringed by stern-faced riders, the nomads huddled together, expecting no mercy.

In the days following the relief of Juramona, the fortunes of the nomads had taken a severe reverse. With the rapidly growing camp at Juramona as their base, the Firebrand Horde, arriving just behind Lord Pagas’s Panthers, set out to strike the nomads wherever they could be found. Faced with such relentless pursuit, the tribes dispersed like drops of water on a hot griddle.

Pagas, Egrin, and Tol rode forward, watching as the latest crowd of frightened survivors was searched. Traditionally, prisoners taken by the Great Horde were sold as slaves in the nearest city, after the most infamous among them faced summary execution. By Tol’s order, notorious killers were arrested, stolen booty reclaimed, and the chastised nomads were then driven out of the empire. Not only did he consider slavery evil, but if word got out they were enslaving captives, Tol knew the remaining raiders would fight all the harder. He wanted the nomads to flee, not fight.

Tol spied a familiar face in the clumps of women and old people. He ordered the man brought forward. Riders wove through the crowd, converging on the man, and driving him out to face Lord Tolandruth.

“Chief Mattohoc?”

The dark-skinned chief of the Sand Treader tribe glared up at his captor. Shame and fury stiffened his hulking frame as he acknowledged his name. He had obviously fought hard: shoulders and arms were striped by sword cuts, a deep gash laid open his forehead, and his left thigh was tightly wrapped with bloodstained bandages.

Tol asked him where the rest of his tribe was. Mattohoc’s reply was an impossibly obscene suggestion. An irate Ergothian kicked him between the shoulders, and the chief fell forward to his hands and knees.

“Enough!” Tol barked. “We do not abuse prisoners!”

Tol had a waterskin brought to the badly wounded chief. As Mattohoc drank noisily, Tol called for a healer to tend him.

“Heal him?” Pagas was so astonished, he broke his usual reticence. “By rights we should separate him from his head!”

“That may happen. But for now, Mattohoc is a captured chief, and he will be treated with respect.” Mattohoc’s expression showed no gratitude, only impotent fury.

Later, as the Ergothian commanders dined under a canvas fly pitched on the summit of a nearby knoll, Mattohoc was brought before Tol.

Landed hordes, eager to take back their country from the invaders and to serve the famous Lord Tolandruth, were still arriving from the south and east. From their vantage point, the commanders could see a seemingly endless stream of newcomers riding to their camp. As Mattohoc approached, limping, Tol waved him to a stool. The chief’s wounds had been dressed, but his face was gray and he grunted as he sat. Cider, bread, and a joint of meat were placed before him. He regarded the repast with disdain.

“You won’t make me talk by showing me kindness,” he sneered.

“No one’s asked you to talk. Eat or not, as you please,” Tol replied, then bade Egrin continue his report.

The old warrior was marking tallies on a scrap of parchment. “With the arrival of the Silver Star Horde, our strength is now thirty thousand,” he said. “Plus two thousand, six hundred twelve foot soldiers.”

“We need more. I want fifty thousand men under arms by the time we reach Caergoth.” Tol poured himself another draught of cider and looked a question at Egrin. At his nod, Tol refilled his cup as well.

Across the folding table, Lord Argonnel said, “Why so many, my lord? Surely this campaign is winding down?”

A brown-bearded fellow of middle years, Argonnel commanded the Iron Scythe Horde, made up of gentry from the extreme northeast corner of the empire.

“This campaign has just started,” Tol replied. “Once the nomads are defeated, there will be other enemies to fight.”

The warlords made cheerfully belligerent noises. Lord Tolandruth planned to take on the lizard-men, too? So be it!

Lord Trudo, of the Oaken Shield Horde, raised another issue. “My lord, why did you leave command of the militia to that – to that elf?”

The question was not unexpected. After Tokasin’s defeat, Tol had gone with Egrin and Pagas in pursuit of the shattered nomads, leaving Tylocost in command of the Juramona Militia. The Juramonans, impressed by the Silvanesti’s skill and cool demeanor during the battle, accepted him without qualm. Veteran members of the landed hordes were not so open-minded. To lessen the conflict with the hordes (who regarded elves and infantry as equally suspicious), Tol had ordered Tylocost to bring the militia cross-country to a planned rendezvous. Tol’s hordes and Tylocost’s infantry would meet by the bluff where the eastern and western sources of the Caer came together to form the mighty river. It was at this spot, known as the Great Confluence, that Tol had found the Irda millstone decades earlier.

Tol plucked a grape from a bowl. “Tylocost is a great general,” he said. He popped the grape in his mouth. “I trust him.”

“But he’s Silvanesti!” Argonnel protested.

“So he is.” Tol turned to their captive. “Chief Mattohoc, would you let a former enemy ride in your warband?”

Mattohoc, eating awkwardly with his uninjured left hand, grunted an affirmative.

“Why?” Tol asked.

The chief swallowed and said, “Men fight for many reasons. Loot, glory, or a lust for battle. If I find an enemy who fights for other reasons, that man can stand beside me as easily as face me.”

“What other reasons?” asked Egrin.

“Honor, foremost.”

This drew a laugh from the warlords. All save Egrin and Tol scoffed at the notion of honor among such savages as the nomad tribes.

Tol asked, “Would you fight for me, Chief?”

Astonishment robbed the warlords of speech, and even Egrin was taken aback. The edges of the canvas roof flapped in the hot summer breeze, and a mockingbird’s complicated song sounded loud in the silence.

“No,” Mattohoc finally said. He wiped sweat from his shaven head. “My father was Krato, chief before me. When I was a stripling, he took the pay of the Tarsans and led our warriors in their service. They entered the land of the kender, on the way to join the army of Tylocost. By night they were ambushed and slaughtered. The commander of the grasslanders that so treacherously slew my father and kinsmen was Prince Nazramin, who you now call emperor!”

“The Battle of the Boulder Field!” Egrin exclaimed, remembering. “Nazramin’s warriors killed everyone, even those who surrendered!”

Mattohoc nodded. His father’s headless corpse had been found on the field of battle and brought home to his native range. Since then, Mattohoc had dreamed of the day he would avenge himself on the Ergothians.

“Every man in my tribe can tell a like story. You grasslanders take our land, kill our people, or make them slaves. I would rather cut off my own hands than lift a sword for you!”

Mattohoc did not accept Tol’s explanation that Ackal V, formerly Prince Nazramin, was his enemy, too.

“You fight to save him!” the nomad spat.

“We fight to save our country,” Egrin countered.

Mattohoc would not be persuaded. He clung obstinately to his hatred of all Ergothians. Reluctantly, Tol had him taken away. Even without his weapons and chiefly garb, he was still a redoubtable figure. He and Tol stared at each other for a long moment before he limped away, head held high.

Argonnel said, “He’s a forceful leader and a danger to the empire, my lord. If you set him free, he’ll organize his people again and attack!”

It was no more than the truth. Tol had hoped to make Mattohoc his ally, as he had Makaralonga and Tylocost. When he’d first met the doughty chief at the parley with Tokasin, he’d sensed in the Sand Treader a strong sense of honor. Unfortunately, Mattohoc had an even greater thirst for vengeance.

“He must be dealt with,” Egrin said. “In the name of peace and safety.”

Tol did not want to give the order. But as Egrin made to rise from the table, he knew he could not allow his old mentor to shoulder the responsibility that was, by rights, his.

“Mattohoc cannot be allowed to trouble the empire again,” he said quietly. “The order for his execution is given.”

Egrin saluted silently and took his leave. One by one the other warlords departed, until Tol sat alone. He got up from the table and left the shade of the tent. Closing his eyes, he lifted his face to the harsh sun.

*

A winding column of foot soldiers trailed back through the trees. They were an odd mixture: one-time farmers and town merchants, former guards and volunteers who’d never held a spear before the last time Solin’s face was new. Each man had his own reason for joining Lord Tolandruth’s cause. Some loved their homeland. Others wanted revenge against the hated invaders. More than a few, having lost their livelihoods to the war, saw a chance for loot. With Lord Tolandruth in charge, each had confidence in achieving his goal.

Leading the ragtag column were Zala and Tylocost. The half-elf still worried that Tol, without her to personally watch out for him, would get himself killed, in which case there would be nothing to protect Zala or her aged father from the empress’s wrath. Her fears had been temporarily forgotten, as she was forced to listen to Tylocost’s endless chatter.

By the gods, the elf could talk! History, politics, warfare, food, and gardening were his favorite subjects. After five days’ marching, Zala felt she knew enough to go into business as a gardener herself. At least he’d stopped calling her “half-breed,” although “girl” wasn’t much better.

They’d encountered armed nomads several times since leaving Juramona for the southward trek to the Caer River. At first, the warbands had attacked, seeing only a motley band of Ergothians on foot. However, finding themselves faced with Tol’s tactics and Tylocost’s generalship, the plainsmen quickly gave up the attacks as bad business. Horsemen now rode away as the marching men approached, and the sight of fleeing riders never failed to raise a, cheer from the foot-sore soldiery.

Their only serious contest came five days into the journey. Tylocost had kept them tramping forward after sunset that day, though they usually made camp at dusk. Stars began to dot the indigo sky and still they marched. Tylocost was certain the enemy was near, and that a fight was brewing.

Zala was startled by his calm certainty, but did not doubt him. Word was passed back through the ranks, and the marching men quieted. Helmets were donned, spears gripped a little tighter.

They were northeast of the Caer confluence, an area known locally as Riverine. It was hilly country, devoid of settlements and dotted with small, ancient woods. Several of these woodlands contained crumbling ruins, so worn by time as to be completely unidentifiable. Trees far older than even the long-lived Tylocost rose among the stones, endlessly, patiently, prying apart sandstone blocks the size of small huts. Although ruins of one kind or another dotted the land between Hylo and the Gulf of Ergoth, Riverine was particularly rich in obscure relics.

As whippoorwills began calling from the shadowed trees, Tylocost stopped, one hand upraised. The column clattered to a halt. The Silvanesti climbed a pinnacle of ancient masonry, looked around briefly, then descended. He ordered six companies to circle right, around the hill before them. The men moved out, advancing carefully through the trees.

Zala hadn’t liked fighting in the dark at Juramona, and she liked it even less here, stumbling through an unknown wood. “This is crazy,” she muttered. “Fighting a battle in the dark – it’s crazy.”

Tylocost drew his sword and leaned against the ancient stones. “Happens all the time,” he assured her. “In the First Dragon War my ancestor, Amberace Tylocostathan, won a signal victory by attacking a dragon host on a moonless night.”

Zala knew little, and cared less, about ancient history. “You mean, an army of dragons?”

“No, ignorant girl. The great dragons of that age sometimes had followers, men, and even elves, who fought their own kind in return for treasure.”

A messenger came crashing through the trees. “My lord!” he gasped. “A large camp! Nomads! On the other side of the hill!”

“I thought so.” Tylocost snapped upright. “Form a column of half-companies. Swordsmen to the front. We’ll have to get in close to see who we’re fighting.”

The foot soldiers sorted themselves as commanded. No sooner had they done so than a pack of mounted nomads came galloping over the hill. They were few, and probably wouldn’t have attacked if they’d realized how numerous were the Ergothians.

Shouting, they charged. The leading Ergothians, fifty men in each half-company, moved sideways out of the path of the horsemen while the rear companies lowered pikes and made ready to take the shock of the charge. Tylocost climbed atop the ruins for a better vantage. The position also exposed him to the enemy.

Appalled by his careless courage, Zala climbed up beside him.

“Guarding me now?” he said mildly.

“Somebody should,” she grumbled.

There followed a short, sharp clash in the night-veiled woods. Small-scale skirmishes were common as soldiers and nomads fought among the trees. The contest swayed back and forth until the din of fighting behind them spooked the nomads. In threes and fours, they quit and rode back over the hill.

The six companies Tylocost had sent to circle the hill had taken the enemy in the flank.

“Forward, forward! We’ve got them now!” the elf cried.

The balance of his column stormed over the hill. A very large camp filled the dark ravine below. To the right, the flanking companies were briskly engaged with nomads, also on foot. A large herd of horses milled about, neighing nervously.

The Ergothians reached a low stockade that impeded their progress. They tried to force their way through the rough-hewn rail fence, hacking at the barrier with swords, or tearing at it with bare hands. Nomad archers stood their ground, felling man after man.

Dead and wounded were piling up when a section of stockade finally collapsed. With a roar the Ergothians flooded through the gap, overwhelming the horseless nomads. Beset on two sides, the plainsmen abandoned the fight. Many leaped onto horses, cut their tethers, and galloped away bareback.

The remaining nomads threw down their arms. Tylocost had to restrain his fevered troops from killing their surrendered foes in revenge for the outrages they’d perpetrated. Tylocost felt the professional’s distaste for partisan warfare. Battles were much easier to control when the forces involved were true-born warriors, not armed peasants who lost control of their emotions.

Fortunately, cooler heads – old guardsmen from Juramona – prevailed, and helped him herd the captives into a corner of the stockade. Order was restored, and torches lit.

The nomad camp was unusual. Plainsmen didn’t usually bother erecting a stockade. The reason for it soon became clear. Not only were there several hundred horses in the gully, but also heaps of valuables liberated from Ergothian strongholds. The horses weren’t plains ponies either, but long-legged Ergothian breeds. Judging by their brands, most had been captured from Lord Bessian’s shattered army.

Tylocost pulled off a weathered tarp covering a head-high pile of goods. A hodgepodge of kegs, crates, and baskets was revealed, each filled with plunder. They held gold coins, silver plate, loose gems, jewelry, bolts of brocade and silk, fine swords, and ritual objects stolen from Juramona’s razed temples. Other piles contained armor, weapons, and the war standards of the defeated hordes. There were enough sabers to equip eight or nine hordes.

Zala asked the elf why he looked so grim. She found the treasure an exhilarating sight.

“What do you suppose will happen when the men find out what they’ve captured?” he said. “What’s to stop them from seizing this loot for themselves?”

“You will. Remind them who they are and what they’re fighting for. Their pride will stop them.”

He appraised her anew. “For an unschooled woods-runner, you have insight.”

The double-edged compliment drew a snort from the half-elf.

Omitting only the troops that were needed to guard the nomad prisoners, Tylocost assembled his army. All eyes widened as the men beheld the piles of looted treasure the elf had left uncovered.

“Here are the stolen treasures of your country!” Tylocost shouted, his voice ringing through the nomad camp. “The gods have seen fit to reverse the tide of war and return it to you. Now we have a grave duty. We must secure this hoard for Lord Tolandruth until the rightful owners can he found.”

A rumble of talk sounded from the assembled men. One called out, “Can’t we make use of just a little of it, General? I got a homemade spear and brass pot for my head. There’s real blades and armor there!”

Tylocost looked thoughtful, as though the notion had not occurred to him. “That does sound fair,” he allowed. “I’ll appoint a quartermaster to distribute the arms appropriately.”

There were nods and grins all around.

Tylocost added, “The rest of this booty shall be sacred. No one is to touch it, on pain of death.”

The men nodded. Theft by a soldier in the field was punishable by hanging, and every man present remembered the fate of the deserters at Juramona.

Guards were posted to watch over the valuables. Tylocost called for volunteers with riding experience. These men were mounted on captured Ergothian horses and ordered to find Lord Tolandruth’s army and report what they’d captured. Heavy wagons would be required to move the weighty treasure, and until they arrived Tylocost and his troop would remain to safeguard it.

Daybreak arrived, cloudy and warm. The ravine seemed airless, cut off by the hills from the usual summer breezes. Face red with heat, Tylocost soaked a kerchief in water and knotted it around his neck.

“Hey, gorgeous, whatcha doin’?”

The unfamiliar, high-pitched voice brought Tylocost whirling around in surprise. He saw a kender perched atop a pile of treasure. The little fellow was idly twirling the elf’s floppy hat. No one had seen him arrive, much less climb up the mound of booty, so his appearance prompted much consternation and drawing of swords.

“Who in Chaos are you?” Tylocost demanded. “And give me my hat!”

“Curly Windseed. Fine. It’s too big for me anyway!” the kender replied rather confusingly. His brown hair was clipped short and a fringe of straight bangs fell into his light blue eyes.

He sent the hat spinning through the air to its rightful owner. Tylocost caught it deftly and ordered him off the treasure pile.

“This is the property of the Ergoth Empire,” the Silvanesti added.

“So this is Ergoth? Good!” the kender pronounced, leaping nimbly to the ground. “You know, gorgeous, you could use a new hat. For a fee, I could find you a really good one.”

Before Tylocost could deliver a scathing reply, he heard himself hailed. A soldier was running toward him through the piles of stolen goods.

“Strangers are in camp!” the soldier cried. “Kender!”

Tylocost muttered, “Of course. There’s never just one aphid on the roses.”

“Friends of yours?” Zala asked Curly Windseed.

“Sure. Well, some of them. I don’t much like Duck; he cheats at games. And Rambletoe snores like a donkey. Downy’s okay – Downy Redfoot, that is. She —”

Tylocost gave a frustrated snarl and stalked away to order his troops to assemble. Zala was fascinated. A few minutes with a kender had shattered the Silvanesti’s impeccably cool demeanor.

Soon, ten kender had gathered around Curly Windseed. Tylocost pegged them as wanderers, poking their noses where they weren’t wanted, and ordered them sent on their way.

Zala wondered at their attire. All the kender were armed with short swords and dressed in scale shirts and matching green leggings.

“Why are you dressed alike?” she asked Curly.

Idly poking through a crate of stolen goods, he said, “Because we’re scouts.”

“For the Queen’s Own Royal Loyal Militia,” another kender put in.

Zala whirled on Tylocost, exclaiming, “These are the allies Lord Tolandruth sent for!”

The elf sneered in disbelief, but Curly confirmed that they had indeed been led here by their queen, Casberry of Hylo, and a towering, blonde human woman whose name he couldn’t remember.

“Kiya!”

Curly shook his head at Zala. “No, that’s not it.” He and his comrades began arguing amongst themselves over the giant’s proper name.

Tylocost put a hand to his forehead. “Lord Tolandruth must be mad, sending for these pests.”

Zala reminded him how easily the kender had penetrated the stockaded camp, with the Ergothians awake and vigilant. If Lord Tolandruth could harness the natural abilities of the kender, it could only help their cause, she said.

Another runner arrived, bringing additional news: more kender were coming, following a strange wooden fetish borne on the shoulders of two brawny humans. The fetish was attended by a Red Robe wizard.

This was incredible, even for kender. Tylocost and Zala hurried through the nomad camp. At the north end, by a broken-down section of the stockade, they found the kender – and Kiya.

The Dom-shu looked sunburned and weary. Beside her was a man of middle years, wearing a dusty, faded crimson robe. His hands were bound in front of him, with Kiya holding a rope attached to his bonds. Behind them stretched a long, straggling column comprising a couple hundred armed humans and a substantial sprinkling of kender. The procession was indeed headed by two brawny, sweat-slicked men bearing on their shoulders an elaborate sedan chair of cedar and gold. A tiny figure sat in the chair. As the runner had said, the figure appeared to be carved from dark hardwood, weathered by long exposure to sun, wind, and rain. It was draped in shiny purple cloth.

Kiya hailed Tylocost. “By the gods, I never thought I’d be glad to see your face again!” she said.

“And you smell as delightfully as I remember,” the elf retorted. “What is this menagerie, woman?”

“What Husband requested. This is the army of Hylo – and may Corij have mercy on us all!”

She jerked the rope and brought her prisoner forward.

“This fellow claims to be Helbin, chief of the Red Robe wizards in Daltigoth, but will say no more about his business. He’s certainly a wizard all right, so watch him.”

“I demand to be taken to Lord Tolandruth,” Helbin said irritably.

Ignoring the wizard for now, Tylocost asked Kiya, “What is that peculiar fetish at the head of your army? It’s hideous!”

Kiya looked blank. “Fetish?” The truth dawned on her, and she threw back her head and laughed. “Come. I’ll introduce you!”

When they drew nearer, they could hear a faint rasping coming from the figure.

“It’s alive!” Zala exclaimed.

“Very.” Kiya rapped a fist against the chair rail. “Your Majesty! You have visitors!”

The wizened doll opened one eye. “Hmm? Is it noon already?”

“May I present Queen Casberry of Hylo,” Kiya said. “Your Majesty, this is the famous general from Silvanost, Janissiron Tylocostathan, known as Tylocost.”

Casberry leaned forward, staring hard at the elf. “Whew!” she exclaimed. “How did you survive such a beating? What a face they left you with!”

Her bluntness made Zala blink. The elf replied genially, “Bold words indeed from a carved totem.” He bowed in the best courtly Silvanesti fashion. “Your Majesty is a tribute to her embalmer.” It was clear these two were not going to get along.

Kiya explained they had gone first to Juramona, but learned Tol had moved on. They had been following the track of Tylocost’s column, knowing it would lead them to Tol eventually.

Queen Casberry wanted breakfast. The little group made their way to the center of the former nomad camp, where Tylocost’s men had kindled a cookfire. Kiya, still leading the sullen Helbin, asked Zala about Tol. The half-elf reported she hadn’t seen him for some days now.

“That must have been quite a fight at Juramona,” Kiya said.

Zala’s memory echoed with screams, and the remembered scent of blood caused her to shudder. To her surprise, the stoical Dom-shu woman gave her back a consoling pat.

“Things happen around Husband. They always have.” Rubbing her hands together, Kiya added, “I’m starving! How about you, wizard?”

The three of them joined the others at the cookfire, where the Ergothians were dishing up boiled bacon and bean porridge left behind by the defeated nomads.

After breakfast, the balance of the day was spent repairing the stockade and sorting through the arms they’d discovered. Once the presence of treasure was discovered by Gasberry and her troops, the number of kender in camp began to decline rapidly. The treasure piles also underwent a reduction. Despite Tylocost’s alert guards, the gemstones and trinkets weren’t safe, and entire kegs vanished. By sundown, the Royal Loyal Militia was down to half its original strength.

Gathered again at the cookfire for supper, Kiya demanded that Casberry stop her people from stealing.

“Kender don’t steal,” Casberry said quite seriously. “That’s a great lie spread about my people wherever they go.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Tylocost said dryly.

In addition to a purple silk gown and a short leather vest dyed brilliant scarlet, the queen now wore a golden circlet. It was the first badge of office Kiya had seen her wear, and she wondered which pile of Ergothian loot had yielded the delicate crown.

While the others debated the reputation of kender, Zala slipped away. She wandered through the covered piles of booty, with no particular goal in mind, and came upon Helbin. Kiya had picketed him, very like a horse, away from the campfire, so the mysterious wizard couldn’t overhear their plans for the coming days. Two spearmen had been left to guard him, but they stood at a wary distance. The wizard sat on an overturned keg, his hands bound, seemingly lost in gloomy thoughts.

Noticing her, Helbin rose. Zala mumbled an apology for disturbing him and backed away.

“Please, don’t go. You’re not unknown to me. You’re called Zala, yes?” She kept going, and he called desperately, “We have something in common. Release me and I’ll tell you what it is.”

She laughed. “That ruse is older than both of us!”

Zala was about to vanish around a pile of loot when Helbin blurted, “You and I owe allegiance to the same master! Or, I should say, the same mistress? The Lady of the Books.”

She hesitated. Pressing his advantage, the wizard said, “I know you are Zala Half-Elven. It was I who searched the hunting fraternity for a skilled female tracker and found your name. I recommended you to her in the first place.”

“What was my charge?”

“To find Lord Tolandruth and bring him back to Daltigoth.”

That was not good enough, and Zala told him so. That information was common knowledge now, among the Juramona Militia.

“I also know your human father is held hostage to your success. He’s a prisoner in Caergoth.”

The mention of her father sent anger flooding through Zala. She drew her sword. The wizard recoiled as she put the sword tip under his chin and demanded to know what he was up to.

“We’re on the same side!” Helbin insisted. “Set me free! I cannot work bound up like this. Dire things may happen if I am not free!”

“If you’re such a high sorcerer, why don’t you hex the cords from your hands?”

Helbin grimaced. “I am not a sorcerer. I am a wizard of the Red Robes.” Such distinctions obviously mattered little to her, so he added, “I need to move my hands in order to perform conjurations —”

She dropped the point of her sword to his chest. “Is my father safe?” she asked, voice husky with fear.

“He lives. He’s held by the governor of Caergoth, Lord Wornoth.”

“What is your purpose here? Speak true, or I’ll cut your throat!”

“Our lady has sworn me to silence. I may speak only to Lord Tolandruth!”

He seemed genuinely distressed, but that meant nothing. City folk were like that, Zala knew. They lied as easily as they breathed.

“If you kill me, all we have fought for will be lost!” Helbin announced.

“And what exactly are ‘we’ fighting for?”

Zala flinched hard at the unexpected voice behind her. Her sword point pierced Helbin’s silk robe, and he yelped.

Tol had just emerged from behind a pile of treasure. Arrayed behind him were Kiya, Tylocost, Queen Casberry, and a sextet of warriors.

“So, Master Helbin,” Tol said. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Chapter 14

DEBTS REPAID

An eerie silence had enveloped Daltigoth. Born of terror, it was a palpable presence, like an evil spirit unknowingly summoned from the Abyss. Streets were empty, market squares abandoned, and wind tumbled rubbish over the cobbles where commerce once reigned. Ground level windows were either boarded up or broken out, empty black holes hinting at tragedies within.

Ackal’s Wolves had run rampant through the city for four days. The rioting, which had plagued the capital off and on since the beginning of the bakali invasion, ceased completely. So had all trade. From the Quarry District to the canal quay, Daltigoth was quiet – as a corpse is quiet.

Backed by imperial authority, Captain Tathman had proclaimed a curfew. Anyone found outdoors between sundown and sunrise faced swift, certain death. No one was immune – neither lords nor ladies, wizards, priests, artisans, or laborers. Ackal V’s thugs moved in a body from district to district, sounding their terrifying wolf calls. These strange instruments, made from cow horn and brass, gave a perfect lupine imitation, the last sound many ears in Daltigoth heard.

Thieves, malcontents, spies, and petty intriguers who continued to ply their trades were slain. So, too, were innocents slaughtered. Workers caught unawares, and folk whose only crime was to be drunk enough to think they could negotiate the back alleys with impunity, paid for their folly. The curfew also gave the Wolves a legal excuse to dispose of their personal enemies. Most were dragged out of their homes, declared in violation of the curfew once on the street, and summarily executed.

The number of deaths was so large a wagon service had to be hastily organized to remove the bodies, to prevent the outbreak of disease. Prisoners from the city jail were conscripted to dig a mass grave. Each morning the wagons rolled to the green fields outside Daltigoth’s vast walls and deposited their cargo in the hard earth.

The City Guards, the usual keepers of the peace, had achieved nothing more than a stalemate after a half a year battling the rioters. When the Wolves began their pacification of the unruly streets, some Guards joined them. The rest returned to their barracks and closed their shutters.

With the city growing more tomb-like each day, the emperor became increasingly buoyant. He’d ordered Tathman to keep detailed lists of the “criminals” executed, and he pored over these lists at breakfast and dinner. When he spotted the name of some old enemy, the emperor drank a toast to the victim’s demise, then added a gold coin to the cup as reward for Tathman.

One evening, Ackal V held a macabre banquet in the great plaza. He was the only guest. He sat at the head of the great banquet table dining on venison and squab, while facing him was rank upon rank of empty chairs, arranged in lines as precise as a military parade. Each chair represented a resident of Daltigoth slain by the Wolves. The emperor ate and drank well into the night, served by silent, expressionless lackeys. Now and then one would bring a new chair to the rear of the formation.

Empress Valaran lost contact with her chief agent in the city on the second day of the curfew. She sent him another message written in Yetai’s secret ink. The courier also disappeared.

In the late afternoon, a few days after her husband’s bizarre banquet, Valaran ascended to a high palace corridor to look out on the city’s now-quiescent streets. She avoided her old sanctuary. The palace roof reminded her too strongly of Winath’s death. She contented herself with the view of the city’s southwest quarter offered by this high, long corridor, which connected the imperial suite to the Consorts’ Chambers. From here she could see much of the New City and the Canal District.

Six days had passed since her last communication with Helbin. During that time she’d brought the magic mirror to her own bedchamber, hiding it in plain sight on the high table that held her toiletries. There it seemed nothing more than an exotic Silvanesti trinket, and she could make multiple attempts during the day to contact the wizard, without arousing suspicion by too frequent trips to the library. She had no success; the mirror showed nothing but her own face.

Columns of smoke no longer obscured the city rooftops. The swell of angry voices, once as regular as the ocean tide, likewise was stilled.

Couriers brought war news. The bakali had crossed the Dalti River without boats by resorting to a remarkable tactic. Working night and day, they created a low, short wall of stones about twenty paces out from the eastern shore. They filled this backwater with all manner of rubbish – whole trees, rubble from human homesteads. The result was a huge floating weir of debris. It dammed the Dalti sufficiently to lower the water level behind the obstruction enough for the lizard-men to cross to the far shore. Once loose on the west bank, they swarmed through the rich farmlands northeast of Daltigoth, driving out everyone in their path. They tore down houses and barns, dragging the broken timbers and masonry along with them.

Halfway between the Dalti and North Thorn rivers the bakali host halted and began building an enormous fortified camp. The flat alluvial plain seemed an odd choice for a stronghold; it offered no heights on which to build. Undaunted, the lizard-men erected a huge earthen mound, bolstered by stolen timber and brick, and commenced digging a deep ditch around it. Other parties of bakali carved channels in the black soil back to the Dalti River. When they completed the channels, they could flood the low-lying land around the earthen mound, and create a wide, deep moat.

Faced with these developments, Ackal V scrapped his earlier plans and ordered all the empire’s remaining hordes to muster for battle. The Great Horde came together at the village of Verryne, on the east bank of the Thorn River, fifteen leagues from the capital. Only a few cavalry bands remained between Daltigoth and the bakali host, scouting and watching the enemy. This left the city open to attack, but the emperor wasn’t worried. The walls of Daltigoth were formidable, the city could be supplied indefinitely via the imperial canal.

Although the bakali seemed the greater danger, strange reports from the east disturbed Ackal V more. They gave Valaran a secret thrill of hope. Rumor had it new Ergothian forces were gathering on the plains north of Caergoth. The nomads had been smashed, and someone was driving the plainsmen back to their home range beyond the Thel Mountains. In her heart, Valaran knew who must be leading these Ergothians. So did Ackal V.

From her vantage point, Valaran watched as the disk of the sun touched the hills west of Daltigoth. Sunset had once been the signal for public houses and wine shops in the Canal District to spring to life. No more. Not with the Wolves’ and their brutal curfew.

Valaran visited a public house in the Canal District once, many years ago. For the first and only time in her life, she had ventured into the city of her birth and mixed with common folk in The Bargeman’s Rest. Tol had escorted her there. A fight had broken out, and the public house had burned, and Tol had kissed her for the first time. She could still remember that kiss: The awkward press of lips, the stubble of beard on his chin, the taste of …

Feminine laughter broke the spell of Valaran’s memories. The Consorts’ Circle was coming. The fashionably pale, uniformly foolish faces of Ackal’s other wives and the women of the court regarded the empress without interest. As custom demanded, each dropped a quick curtsey as she passed in a hiss of silk. None addressed Valaran, and soon she was alone again in the high corridor.

*

Word of Tylocost’s coup reached Tol, causing excitement among the landed hordes. A cache of treasure would be a welcome addition to their war chest, which, as Egrin wryly pointed out, previously had comprised whatever coins they happened to have on them.

Tol left Egrin and the bulk of the army to continue harrying the nomads from the country and rode swiftly to meet up with Tylocost. With him, he took Riders from Lord Trudo’s Oaken Shield Horde and Argonnel’s Iron Scythe Horde, some one thousand men on the swiftest horses. Trudo and Argonnel came as well.

Arriving at Tylocost’s camp, Tol was cheered even more to discover Kiya there.

Kiya took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Husband! Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Only in the saddle,” he joked.

After this characteristically brief reunion, Kiya led him to Tylocost.

The elf’s rough tally of the treasure cache – even with all the kender “borrowings” – was impressive. Unwilling to burden their ponies with too much heavy loot, the nomads had made the airless ravine the repository for nearly all the wealth stolen from the eastern provinces.

Tol went to pay his respects to the queen of Hylo. Casberry’s first words brought a smile to his face.

“Don’t forget your loyal allies, my lord, when it comes time to divide up all that lovely gold!”

They grinned at each other. The queen’s face was partially. Obscured by a jewel-encrusted tiara made to sit upon a brow much larger than hers.

Kiya took Tol aside and told him how they had found Helbin. It was her considered opinion the Red Robe was spying for the emperor. Tol acknowledged this was possible. Unlike his high-minded, White Robe colleagues, Yoralyn and Oropash, Helbin had always struck Tol as an opportunist.

Kiya, Tol, and an escort of warriors then went to where Kiya had left the wizard. They arrived just in time to discover Zala standing before the wizard with her sword at his throat. She told them the Red Robe claimed to be on their side, to be working for the same patron as she.

“That remains to be seen,” Tol replied. “Master Helbin, you’ll be judged by how you behave, so no tricks.”

With great dignity, Helbin nodded once. Tol cut his tether and bade the wizard follow him. They returned to the campfire. Casberry was sitting in her sedan chair, which rested on the ground. Front and Back lay nearby, snoring softly.

In spite of Helbin’s tacit cooperation, Tol left the wizard’s wrists bound. Two guards stood behind him. Folding his beringed hands in his lap, Helbin settled himself on the ground across the campfire from Tol.

“Speak, wizard,” Tol said at last. “Why are you so far from your tower?”

Helbin met Tol’s eyes squarely. “I cannot talk freely before so many, my lord. There’s no telling to whom all these ears belong.”

“Hang him and be done with it,” Tylocost commented.

Judging by the expressions around the fire, most agreed with this suggestion. Either offended or frightened, Helbin remained silent.

“So you claim to work for Zala’s patron …” Tol said. Like the half-elf, he avoided using Valaran’s name openly. In truth, there were too many ears listening. “Can you prove this?”

The Red Robe thrust out his bearded chin. “My word is beyond question!”

“Not with me.”

Tol drew his steel saber and held it up, studying the striations of the forged edge, marked with age and faint traces of rust. It was a brilliantly crafted blade. In a conversational tone, he remarked, “The last wizard I had dealings with ending by losing his head. You knew him, I believe?”

Helbin blanched. Mandes the Mist-Maker, Tol’s mortal enemy, had been a Red Robe wizard, before the lure of darker magic turned him into a rogue. “My baggage contains documents from the person in question,” Helbin said tersely.

The wizard’s belongings were brought to Tol. As he opened the appropriate satchel, Helbin’s anxiety was plain.

Tol held up the empress’s charge, read it silently, and passed it around.

Be it known, the parchment stated, The bearer is acting for the good of the Empire. By My Command, (signed) VALARAN, Empress.

Valaran’s seal, an owl clutching a scroll in either claw, was genuine, but Tylocost, for one, was not impressed.

“He could be an imperial rat-catcher. Or he might have stolen the document,” the elf said, drawing a look of outrage from the Red Robe.

The remainder of the wizard’s books and papers yielded nothing of particular interest. He’d kept a log of his travels and had copious notes regarding magical processes, such as warding off scryers, confounding pursuers, and cloaking a location from sight – all perfectly reasonable since Helbin’s specialty was seeing far and not being seen. Then the searchers came upon a small brass-bound box just over two handspans long, one wide, and one deep. Its seamless sides betrayed no lid.

“Don’t touch that!” Helbin snapped at the warriors handling the box. He refused to say what it was, so Tol ordered his men to break it open.

The wizard tried to stand, but the soldiers behind him pressed him down again. “My lord, please!” he begged.

“I will have this open, Helbin,” Tol said flatly, lifting Number Six.

Brass and wood, however cunningly joined, could not withstand a stroke of steel, and Helbin gave in rather than see the box broken. “As you wish, my lord, but I should like to reveal its contents only to you!”

Though Kiya protested, Tol agreed. He and the wizard left the others by the campfire. Kiya tried to follow, but Tol ordered her to remain.

Wizard and warrior went to the center of the nomad camp. Shielded by piles of stolen goods higher than their own heads, they stopped.

As Helbin complained about his treatment and the general lack of respect shown to him, Tol examined the box. It was weighty for its size. There was no obvious clasp or latch. If the box was sealed by magical means, the millstone Tol wore in a concealed pocket should have dispersed the spell by now. He shook it hard, but heard nothing rattle inside.

“My lord, I beg you,” Helbin urged. “Do not open this box. I give you my word it is not dangerous to you. But opening it —” The wizard shuddered. “The effect could be incalculable!”

Sweat had beaded Helbin’s sunburned brow and trickled into his close-cropped beard. Tol was beginning to wonder about the possible danger. Still, he had to know what was in this box.

With Tol’s wary gaze upon him, and muttering all the while about dire consequences, Helbin opened the box. On the middle finger of his left hand he wore a large amethyst ring. He tapped the round purple jewel on the box four times. One edge of the brass rim popped up.

Tol waved him back and lifted the hinged door. The box was lined with soft black felt. Nestled inside was a dully gleaming object, a statuette wrought in gray lead.

The small figurine hardly seemed worth all the trouble. Tol noticed tiny screw clamps attached to its head. His puzzlement showed, and Helbin, averting his eyes from the figurine, whispered, “Look at its features.”

Tol bent closer, then straightened abruptly, nearly dropping the statue in shock.

“Nazramin!”

Helbin nodded miserably. “The image you hold was made by the late sorcerer Mandes. These” — he flicked a finger toward the screw clamps — “are intended to destroy the emperor’s mind, slowly and painfully.”

Tol was far less shocked than Helbin by the statue and its purpose. It surprised him not at all to discover that the devious, traitorous Mandes had been hexing his own patron. Then Helbin’s last words suddenly sparked a revelation.

“This is how Nazramin destroyed his brother!” he exclaimed.

Image magic was the lowest, vilest form of sorcery, a practice of scrubby shamans or mercenary sorcerers. It shamed a proud wizard like Helbin to possess such a monstrous object.

Seeing it again loosed the floodgates of Helbin’s memory, and the story of how it had come to him poured out.

After Mandes’s death, one of the wizard’s servants had delivered certain scrolls and the figurine to Empress Valaran. The scrolls described how Prince Nazramin had employed Mandes to ruin the mind and body of his brother, Ackal IV, through black magic. The prince did not know, of course, that Mandes had made a second image, of Nazramin himself. The new emperor’s natural cruelty had been magnified tenfold by Mandes’s sorcery.

Tol stared at the figurine. The cunningly crafted metal face bore the perfect impression of the emperor’s outthrust chin, high forehead, arrogant eyes, and his perpetual sneer beneath an upswept mustache.

Helbin begged Tol to put the statuette back in its box. Instead, Tol asked, “If I damaged this thing, would the same hurt be inflicted on Ackal V?”

“Not literally. With sympathetic magic, parallel harm occurs,” Helbin said. The two screw clamps, he explained, were simply a representation of the power summoned to damage the emperor’s mind.

Why had Mandes sent this awful object to Valaran after his death? Tol wondered. Not for atonement. The rogue wizard had never felt a moment’s remorse in his life. No, Tol realized this was Mandes’s final act of malice. Valaran, loathing Ackal V herself and inviolate within the imperial precinct, was the perfect choice to inherit the figurine and fulfill Mandes’s plan for revenge.

He asked Helbin why Valaran had sent the statuette out of the city.

“Her Majesty enlisted me in her plan to save the empire,” Helbin said slowly. “I was glad to oblige. The bakali were pouring across the border. What everyone else saw as a disaster, Empress Valaran saw as the possible salvation of Ergoth. She ordered me to travel the countryside, using my skills to obscure the movements of the bakali host from my colleagues in the Tower of High Sorcery. Without advance knowledge of the enemy’s movements, the incompetent generals of the Great Horde stood no chance of defeating the invaders.”

The explanation took Tol’s breath away. “That’s treason!”

Helbin stiffened. “Strong medicine for an ailing patient, my lord. The emperor’s corruption and brutality will surely destroy the empire. Empress Valaran lacks powerful allies at court. She reasoned, quite sensibly, that a major military defeat would stir the provincial warlords to rise up against the emperor, inspiring the cowed warlords in Daltigoth to follow suit.”

Tol swore under his breath. Scheming wench! In her grand design, who did Valaran see leading the landed hordes to the rescue? That simple, dutiful soldier, Tol of Juramona, of course! He couldn’t decide whether her grandiose machinations filled him with pride, or fear.

“You still haven’t answered the question – why send the image out of the city with you? Why not use it to destroy Ackal V, as the Mist-Maker used one to kill the emperor’s brother?”

Helbin said distastefully, “My lord, Empress Valaran is a woman of high purpose and great courage. She would not stain her soul by stooping to Mandes’s methods. She reasoned that if conditions in the palace deteriorated too rapidly, her life, and that of her son, Crown Prince Dalar, would be in danger. Her Majesty placed the statue in my keeping to ensure it remained hidden.”

That was face-saving nonsense. Ridding herself of the figure removed the temptation to kill her husband outright. His death, at this time, would be inopportune. Valaran was of noble blood, but not royal, and she would have no support to rule herself. Claimants to the imperial throne would spring up like toadstools after a summer rain. The result would be chaos on an unimaginably bloody scale.

That’s where Tol came in. Returned to Daltigoth, he and his army could maintain order while the warlords deposed or executed the crazed Ackal V. The crown prince could be enthroned, with Valaran overtly or covertly the power behind the throne, backed by Tol’s hordes. It was a brilliant plan, devious and twisted, worthy of a lifelong resident of the imperial palace.

Helbin was still talking, but Tol had stopped listening. He grasped the clamp encircling the statuette’s temples, and the wizard yelped. Helbin might loathe the statuette and all it stood for, but it had been placed in his charge by the empress herself.

Ignoring his protestations, Tol removed the two clamps. Deep dents remained on both of the statuette’s temples and on its forehead.

“This is not how Ergoth will be saved,” Tol said. He waved Number Six, torchlight flashing off its polished steel blade. “This is the instrument of our deliverance! Nothing else!”

He hunted up a piece of cloth from a nearby pile of loot, wrapped it around the evil image, and tied the whole thing to his back, where his mantle concealed it. After filling the small brass-bound box with coins and jewels from a nearby pile of treasure, he led a sorely complaining Helbin back to the campfire.

Queen Casberry and Tylocost were trading stories about the stupidity of humans. Kiya hailed Tol in relief.

“You arrive just in time, Husband. These two are talking us all to death!”

Tol dropped the box on the ground. Rubies and golden coins spilled out.

“That’s all there was,” he said, meeting their eyes. “Release Master Helbin from his bonds.”

Kiya wasn’t certain this was wise, but Tol said the wizard was joining their company. He directed a pointed look at Helbin, adding, “His freedom and continued good health are entirely in his own hands.”

Tol sent for horde commanders Trudo and Argonnel. The treasure confiscated from the nomads would be invaluable in sustaining their fight and must be safeguarded against any attempts by plainsmen (or others) to abscond with it. Tol wanted the treasure promptly moved, all of it.

White-haired Trudo, eldest of the commanders of the landed hordes, stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Where are we to take it?” he asked.

“To the only place strong enough to hold it: Caergoth.”

His words provoked ominous silence. Trudo and the younger Argonnel exchanged worried looks. Zala, not understanding the swift change of mood, whispered to Tylocost, “What’s the matter?”

He murmured, “Caergoth’s governor is one of the emperor’s most notorious toadies. Lord Tolandruth is proscribed. In Caergoth he can be arrested, even executed.”

After an instant’s surprised silence, Zala laughed. The bright sound earned scowls from the assembled warlords. Queen Casberry demanded to know the joke.

Zala grinned at the somber faces. “Lord Tolandruth should fear going to Caergoth?” she said, disbelieving. “I think you’ve got it all backwards. It’s Caergoth that should fear Lord Tolandruth!”

Casberry cackled, and Tylocost muttered about wisdom from the mouths of children.

*

Valaran awoke with a start. An instant later, the noise came again: a loud knock at her door and the sounds of movement in the antechamber.

“Come,” she said, sitting up.

The door swung inward. Framed in the dark opening was a disheveled servant bearing a lamp. “Your Majesty,” she said, “the emperor is calling for you!”

Valaran frowned. “Now?”

“Yes, Majesty. Most urgently.”

Dismissing the servant, Valaran slid out of bed. A silk robe of brown and gold brocaded with crimson metallic thread lay across the foot of her bed. She drew it on and donned matching slippers. Her long chestnut hair was braided for bed, so she merely tucked a few errant strands behind her ears before fitting a copper-colored veil over her head and face.

The servant who’d awakened her had withdrawn beyond the tall white doors that marked the entrance to the empress’s suite. There she waited, flanked by sleepy ladies-in-waiting with no more idea what was happening than Valaran. With the women surrounding the empress, the entourage journeyed through the maze of palace corridors.

The doors to the emperor’s rooms stood wide open.

Surprisingly, the opening was flanked by two ordinary soldiers, members of the Household Guard. Ackal V had relied on his Wolves so long Valaran scarcely saw regular Householders anymore. One of the soldiers escorted the empress and her ladies within.

Even from a distance, Valaran could feel the absence of the stifling heat Ackal usually maintained in his chambers. The cavernous hypostyle hall was rapidly cooling to normal. She walked a little faster.

The fire had been allowed to die out in the enormous fireplace. The emperor, wearing nothing but a soldier’s white loincloth, stood before it. He was drinking wine straight from a tall silver urn. Piled on the floor around him and on his bed were the furs, gloves, and heavy clothing he usually wore. The lamplight showed how emaciated he’d become. His ribs were easily visible, and the knobs of his collarbone stuck out like doorknobs at the base of his hollow throat.

Paralyzed by the sight of their nearly naked sovereign, the empress’s escort fell back in disarray. At Valaran’s command, the warrior escorted them out and she found herself alone with her husband.

“Lady, what day is it?”

Taken aback, Valaran regarded the emperor in silent confusion. He repeated the question, and she stammered, “Day four of the Quarter Moon of Luin, Your Majesty. Year Seven of your reign.”

“I did not ask the year!” His temper was unchanged, at least.

He picked up his discarded trews and used them to wipe sweat from his face and chest. “I feel as though I’ve come out of a fever. It was hot as dragon’s breath in here!” he exclaimed, drinking again from the urn.

Valaran’s thoughts were racing. A symptom of Ackal V’s madness, as far back as when Mandes was still alive, was an extreme sensitivity to cold. Obviously something was amiss. Had his madness veered onto another course?

“Helbin,” said Ackal V, lowering the pitcher of wine.

Thank the gods she wore a veil. Hearing that name made Valaran’s face flame with alarm. Her hands, tucked into her sleeves, gripped her forearms tightly. “Who, sire?” she stammered.

“The Red Robe. You know who I mean. I want Helbin found and arrested.”

Was he toying with her? She cleared her throat and asked, “For what charge, Your Majesty?”

“Treason. This business of our seers not being able to observe the bakali – they must have some magical aid.” He waved a hand. “Any idiot could see it. Helbin disappears, then our search for the invaders is stymied. And the Red Robe’s expertise?” The emperor grinned, showing long teeth. “Protective wards and veils of obscurity! He’s aiding the lizards the same way that Mandes did decades ago. I want him dragged back here in chains. Then we’ll find out what the bakali are doing.”

He swept the debris of clothing and furs from his wide bed and climbed into it, dismissing her.

Cautiously, she asked, “You Majesty, why do you give me this order? Such matters are not usually my responsibility.”

“I can’t find Tathman at the moment. He must be in the city somewhere.”

Yes, somewhere in the city killing people. “I will convey your wishes to the warlords, sire.”

“Ignorant, worthless fools, the lot of them,” he muttered, closing his eyes to sleep. “I shall take personal command of the Great Horde. It all falls to me. I will wipe the bakali from the face of Krynn!”

When she was safely out of his sight, in the darkness of the far end of the hall, Valaran was seized with a violent shaking. Mandes’s spell was broken! There could be no doubt. The emperor had recovered his wits. As cruel and unfeeling as ever, his reason was returning – and that made him even more dangerous.

She must relay his order for Helbin’s capture. Ackal V would know if she disregarded his command. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying to warn the Red Robe that his part in her plot was now known. He must not be captured. If he should be made to divulge what he knew – contemplating that disaster made Valaran’s heart shrink to a small, frantic knot.

She fought her rising panic, bracing herself against a column. If the blood of the Ackals ran strong in her husband, the blood of their rivals, the Pakins, flowed with equal strength in her. The Ackals had always been savages; the Pakins ruled by their wits. Cold, at times harsh, to be sure, the Pakins were the intelligent strain in the dynasty. She must call upon that acumen now to save herself and, even more importantly, to save her son. She had to out-think the emperor.

Let Ackal V lead his army into battle. Maybe the bakali would accomplish for her what Mandes, Helbin, and even Lord Tolandruth thus far had not.

Chapter 15

A CLASH OF WORLDS

Lacking the time to procure wagons, Tol decided to transport the nomads’ plunder by horse. The loot was distributed among the herd of captured animals, with especially bulky items loaded onto travois. Strung out in single file, the caravan was quite long. Tylocost’s foot soldiers trudged close alongside the column, while Riders patrolled at a distance. Two thousand men made a formidable escort for the treasure train, but it was a long way to Caergoth.

“Tempting target,” observed Queen Casberry, swaying along in her sedan chair.

“For whom?” asked Tylocost, walking at her side. He considered the kender more of a danger to the treasure than any nomads.

She ignored him and spoke to Tol, who rode on her other side. “It’s a good thing you have us here, my lord.”

“I am grateful for Your Majesty’s help,” Tol replied gravely.

“Grateful. Mmm, yes. About that – your lofty wife made certain promises to us, certain offers. I’d like to take this matter up with you now, my lord.”

Tylocost snorted. Kiya was on the far side of the column, leading the Juramona Militia, and could hardly speak for herself.

“Beware, my lord!” Tylocost warned. “Tiny fingers are reaching for your purse!”

“Tiny fingers soon will be reaching for your eyes, elf!” Gasberry snapped.

Tol suppressed a smile. “Speak your mind, Majesty.”

She launched into a long, rambling address about how long she had lived, how many places she’d visited, and what a good friend to the empire Hylo had always been. She made it sound as though Ergoth and Hylo had been allies and equals for decades, although it was her husband, King Lucklyn the First, who had signed treaties that reduced Hylo to Ergoth’s vassal.

“When the monster XimXim infested our country, the empire sent you to defeat him,” she said. “We won’t dwell on the many years it to took for Ergoth to aid us in our battle against the dreadful creature.”

“Yes, don’t dwell.”

She gritted her teeth at Tylocost’s interruption, but continued, “It’s only fitting that now, when the empire faces its most harrowing moment, Hylo returns the favor. However —”

“Here it comes!”

Casberry lashed out with her fly whisk, made from the severed tail of a donkey. Tylocost ducked the blow.

Annoyed, the queen declared with unkenderlike brevity, “We were promised one gold piece per day, per blade!”

Tylocost exclaimed, “That’s double the going rate for mercenaries! And for what? Them?” He waved a hand at the Royal Loyals, most of whom were dragging their scabbards just to see the patterns of dust that arose.

“A generous offer,” Tol remarked. A good portion of the kender army’s wages, he knew, were kicked back to Casberry. That was simply how business was done in Hylo. “Is Your Majesty not satisfied with it?”

Casberry stared. “You mean, you’ll pay?”

“If Kiya proposed it and you accepted, I must hold to the agreement.”

She sank back against her cushions, beaming. “You’re a prince, Lord Tolandruth. A true prince among humans!” Tylocost sighed, and shook his head.

A dusty rider was galloping toward them. He held aloft a leather cylinder. A message. Tol reined up, and the order to halt was passed down the line. The kender dropped where they were and broke out their skins. Cider and homebrew flowed freely.

Kiya rode over to see what had prompted the stop, and Zala arrived from the trailing ranks. She, too, was mounted on a nomad pony, as was Helbin, trotting close on her heels. Tol had set Zala the task of minding the wizard.

Helbin’s standing was still somewhat murky. Tol had demanded the wizard remove the shield that hid the bakali from the scrutiny of the Daltigoth wizards. Helbin objected, citing the empress’s orders. Tol had then refused to unchain his wrists and placed the Red Robe under Zala’s care. A few days scourged by fetters ought to convince the soft, city-bred Helbin to do as Tol required.

The messenger saluted and handed over the leather cylinder. “Compliments of Lord Egrin,” he said.

Inside the cylinder was a spool of parchment. The message was brief. Tol passed it to Tylocost, then summarized its contents for the others.

“The hordes with Egrin and Pagas have been skirmishing with a large formation of nomads, riding east. Egrin asks if I will move up and join the attack.”

“The nomads are fleeing; let them go,” said Zala.

Tylocost handed the scroll to Kiya. “Hammer them, my lord,” he said. “The harder the better, for the sake of future peace.”

Kiya agreed. “I know plainsmen, Husband. If you let them ride out unmolested, they’ll convince themselves they were never defeated. Eventually, they’ll be raiding the empire’s borders again.”

“My lord, I’d be happy to safeguard the treasure,” Queen Casberry piped.

“The fox guarding the henhouse,” cracked Tylocost.

They began to trade insults, but Tol didn’t hear them. He’d taken the dispatch back from Kiya. Its last line bothered him.

According to prisoners from the Firepath tribe, Egrin had written, it is likely their chief, Tokasin, rides with the host ahead of us. So Tokasin, the red-haired nomad who’d led the attack on Juramona, was still alive.

“Tyiocost,” Tol said, interrupting the bickering. “See the caravan safely to Caergoth. I will ride ahead to the rendezvous point at the confluence, gather the hordes there, and go after the nomads.”

Casberry’s kender were all on foot and couldn’t keep up with Riders anyway, so Tol agreed she should remain behind and “guard the treasure” as well. There was no question Kiya would accompany Tol, but when Zala offered to do likewise, he demurred, telling her to stay with Tylocost, the kinder, and the wizard.

“Besides, you have business in Caergoth, don’t you?”

He had written a pardon for Zala’s human father, held captive in the city. It held no legal standing, but should be sufficient to get the old man released if used in conjunction with the empress’s ring and seal, which Zala still carried.

The huntress was plainly torn. Although eager to free her father, she didn’t like letting Tol out of her sight. If he got himself killed, she would lose the huge bounty owed her by Empress Valaran, and she and her father would likely be targets of the empress’s wrath. However, her father was aged and alone. Lord Tolandruth was neither. She agreed to continue south with Helbin and the elf to Caergoth.

“Don’t worry, girl,” Kiya said. “I’ll watch out for Husband.”

The Dom-shu woman understood the half-elf’s quandary. She disliked being parted from Tol, too. Miya had never felt the same way about him, and teased the tough, stoical Kiya for her “motherly concern.” Kiya thumped her sister soundly, but couldn’t explain her feelings. Perhaps they sprang from Tol’s lack of concern about his own safety. Although he’d lived four decades, he still seemed like a younger brother, one a bit too naive for the dangerous company he kept.

Knowing it was risky, Tol left only a demi-horde of Riders to protect Tylocost’s foot soldiers and the treasure caravan. Of greater concern to Tol than brigands was imperial intervention. Caergoth housed a large garrison, reinforced by remnants of the armies defeated by the nomads. If Governor Wornoth took it on himself to seize the treasure on behalf of the emperor, there would be little Tylocost could do. The war chest of Tol’s burgeoning campaign would be lost.

Still, Tokasin’s band had committed many outrages in the eastern provinces, of which the burning of Juramona was only one. Tylocost was right. To preserve future peace, the tribesmen must be punished as severely as possible.

With just over two hordes, Tol and Kiya rode away from the slow-moving caravan. They arrived at the rendezvous point before midday and found eight landed hordes mustered near the confluence of the east and west branches of the Caer River. Tol proclaimed this the new Army of the East. He and ten thousand Riders headed off to join Egrin’s pursuit of the fleeing nomads.

Ten hordes take up a great deal of territory. The landed hordes, former imperial warriors, knew how to sort themselves into formation. From wing to wing, Tol’s force covered almost three leagues.

By noon the next day, the Ergothians began to see signs of what lay ahead. Dust rose over rolling hills and woodlands, marking the movements of large bodies of horsemen ahead of them. Scouts were sent out to locate friends and foes. Word came back from the southern wing of Tol’s army: armed men, several hundred strong, were riding toward them.

“Nomads?” asked Tol. The sun was high, the air humid; a breeze stirring through the pines around them offered little relief.

“No, my lord. They’re in armor,” said the scout. “They wear yellow capes and golden breastplates, and bear white plumes on their helmets.”

Tol frowned. Why did that sound familiar?

“Probably pirates,” Kiya said absently.

Tol pivoted his horse in a tight circle. “What?” •

“Is your hearing failing, Husband? Men your age often start to lose their prowess in one way or another —”

He shouted for his horde commanders. Yellow capes were the mark of Tarsan soldiers. Tarsan marines, not pirates, wore brass breastplates and plumed helmets.

The news caused the warlords to swear roundly. If Tarsis had broken the peace treaty so hard won by Tolandruth and Lord Regobart, the empire was in worse danger than ever.

Tol halted his army and swung it south, to face the unknown band of Tarsans. Scouts estimated their strength at a few hundred, but they could be the advance guard of a much larger force.

All ten hordes formed the famous scythe formation long favored by Ergothian commanders. The warriors sorted themselves into a great crescent, with the horns of the scythe facing the enemy. If their foes rode straight in, they faced encirclement. If they tried to attack either end, the rest of the hordes could strike them. The silent mass of horsemen rode forward at a fast walk. No sense tiring their animals on so hot a day before a possible battle.

Scouts ranged wider and deeper, to get behind the unknown cavalry. They sent back confirmation. No larger force was in sight. The Tarsans, if Tarsans they were, had only this small band.

When the oncoming force was reported to be only half a league distant, Tol brought his army to a halt. The dust they’d churned up rolled forward over their sweating bodies. They faced an open field. On its far side rose a low hill, its base sprinkled by tall poplars.

They were on familiar ground: the Eastern Hundred. Tol had been born not ten leagues from this spot. The civil war between the Ackals and Pakins had raged back and forth through this province for six years. Later flare-ups, like the raids that had first brought Tol into contact with Marshal Odovar, had not died out completely until Tol was in his teens. Thinly populated and devoid of large cities, the Eastern Hundred was a crossroads for armies moving east and west, traveling to and from the heartland of the empire.

Over their own enforced silence, the Ergothians heard the clatter of metal-clad men and horses on the move. The high, tinny notes of a fife lilted above the noise. Tol drew his sword. Ten thousand warriors followed suit.

“No one is to move until I say,” Tol commanded. “Not one blade!”

At the far side of the field, a wedge of horsemen, mounted on light-colored animals, emerged slowly from the poplar trees. Their brass cuirasses and plumed helmets threw off painfully bright reflections from the high sun; their yellow mantles were stained with grime. The lead riders bore standards of white and gold, but instead of leaping dolphins, symbol of the Tarsan marines, the banners were decorated with golden balance scales.

Tol inhaled sharply, hardly crediting his eyes. It had been many years since he’d seen that symbol on the livery worn by guards of the House of Lux – the guild of goldsmith and gem merchants in Tarsis.

“Everyone, stand fast,” he said, easing his horse forward out of line. Kiya followed him. He opened his mouth to tell her to remain, and she said flatly, “I’m not everyone. I’m your wife.”

The two of them advanced slowly. The Tarsans stopped, and the fifer ceased his tune. The foremost horseman held up a hand in greeting.

“Hail, Ergoth!”

Tol reined up, resting his hands across the pommel of his saddle. Empty hands were a gesture of peace, but Number Six’s grip was close, just in case.

“Hail to you, Tarsis,” he replied. “Who are you, and what brings you to imperial land?”

The rider removed the heavy polished helmet. She was a young woman, with yellow hair cut boyishly short. In each earlobe she wore several tiny gold rings. Her face was familiar; in memory, Tol heard a girl’s high voice saying, “Most call me Val.”

“Valderra.”

She smiled briefly. “My lord flatters me by remembering.”

Valderra was the personal herald of Hanira, Syndic of Tarsis. Years ago, she had led Tol to the Golden House for his meeting with Hanira after the fall of the city.

She added, “You see before you the Free Company of the Golden House. We are here at the bidding of my mistress.”

At Valderra’s nod, the fifer played a lively trill. In response, a trio of riders emerged from the poplar woods at the rear of the Tarsan troop. Although Tol could hardly believe it, Syndic Hanira was one of the three. Flanking her were two bodyguards. She headed directly to Tol and bestowed a radiant smile on her conqueror.

“My Lord Tolandruth,” she said. “It has been a long time.”

She was dressed in gray leather. Her night-black hair was pulled forward over one shoulder, in a single, loose braid. A gray leather hat with narrow brim shaded her face. Some seven years had passed since Tol had last seen her, but Hanira looked exactly as he remembered – elegant, sophisticated, and beautiful – even here in the sunbaked hills of the Eastern Hundred.

Kiya cleared her throat, and Tol straightened in the saddle, recollecting his somewhat scattered thoughts.

“Why are you here, Syndic?” he asked tersely. “And with armed troops? This violates the treaty between Tarsis and Ergoth.”

Hanira lost her pleasant smile, and her tone grew cool. “Syndic I am, but you could spare a kind word to greet a friend.”

“Are you a friend?” asked Kiya bluntly.

“I am. No treaty has been broken, my lord. This is not Tarsis before you now, only the House of Lux.”

Hanira’s guild had hired three hundred twenty veteran mercenaries and equipped them with surplus Tarsan arms. Hanira herself assumed command, although the day-to-day running of the Free Company was left to a professional warrior, Captain Tindyll Anovenax, son of Tol’s former foe Admiral Anovenax. Captain Anovenax rode one of the other horses, but stayed silent behind Hanira.

“We come to offer our help in your time of need,” the syndic said. “My men are at your disposal, my lord.”

Three hundred well-trained mercenaries were a modest but welcome addition to his army. Yet Tol was astonished that Hanira should have paid the cost herself, through the wealthy guild she controlled. Even more amazing, she had accompanied her troops into the field.

Kiya, ever distrustful, asked, “What’s it going to cost us?”

“Nothing. Everything. In politics, as in trade, personal relationships matter most. I am here – we are here – to preserve our longstanding friendship with Lord Tolandruth.”

The Free Company had left Tarsis before the fall of Juramona, sailing west to the Gulf of Ergoth and disembarking at the mouth of the Caer River. They had traveled east to avoid the imperial hordes and bakali hovering around Daltigoth. Hanira had intended to reach Juramona, Tol’s hometown, before the new phase of Solin, but captured nomads had told of the town’s destruction and the plainsmen’s subsequent defeat at the hands of a new Ergothian army.

“I knew it must be you,” she said simply. “We followed the trail of panicked tribesmen, and here you are.”

Tol maneuvered his horse closer to hers, and extended a hand. “Then accept my apology – and my welcome to Ergoth, Syndic.”

Bypassing the hand, she grasped his forearm warrior fashion. Clever Hanira had turned the simple gesture of friendship into a declaration of equality.

She called her captain forward. With his dark hair and olive skin, young Tindyll Anovenax seemed at first glance little like his choleric father, but his face, like the admiral’s, bore the lines carved by wind and sun. He also proved to have the voice of one accustomed to bellowing orders at sea.

Captain Anovenax agreed to follow Tol’s command – it was his syndic’s will, after all. He agreed, too, with Tol’s reasons for ordering him and his men to the rear of the Ergothian formation. More than a few warlords would attack on sight should they spot Tarsans leading a charge.

The Tarsan troopers and their small caravan of supply wagons took their place in the rearguard. Hanira, Valderra, and one of the syndic’s bodyguards remained with Tol. The guard’s high cheekbones, long jaw, and somber expression gave him the look of an ascetic priest. Hanira introduced him as Fenj, the finest swordsman in Tarsis. Fenj’s complete disinterest in conversation wasn’t mere stoicism. His tongue had been cut out when he was captured by pirates as a boy.

The Army of the East and their new allies continued the eastward journey to join up with Egrin’s hordes. Before nightfall, the dark edge of the Great Green was visible on the eastern horizon. Small groups of plains folk, mounted and on foot, could be seen hurrying northward, parallel to the forest edge.

Tol dispatched Lord Trudo to bring back prisoners for questioning. In the gathering dusk, three companies of Trudo’s horde galloped out to seize a band of nomads fleeing on foot. Mounted plainsmen turned back to defend their comrades, and a sharp conflict ensued. Numbers prevailed, however, and soon the Ergothians were herding a line of ragged, frightened captives back to Tol.

Looking down at them from horseback, he asked about their tribe, wanting to know if any were from Tokasin’s Fire-path tribe. No one answered. Trudo offered to behead a few, to encourage the rest to talk. Tol ignored him.

“We’ve not much time!” he told them. “Where is Tokasin? Speak, and you all will be spared!”

A woman clutching a small child spat, “Liar! We know you’ll kill us once you find out what you want to know!”

He couldn’t blame her for thinking so. Any other warlord would do just that.

“My word as Lord Tolandruth, you will not be harmed.”

The woman turned away in stubborn silence, but an older nomad, his gray beard spattered with blood, shouted, “Many here are Firepathers! They’re trying to reach their chief at the Isle of Elms!”

This was a large grove of elm trees, a half-league from the Great Green. The closely growing trees, sited atop a slight rise, would make an excellent defense against imperial horsemen.

Shoving broke out among the prisoners as Firepathers vented their anger against the old fellow for speaking, but other tribesmen, young and old, defended him. The alliance between tribes obviously was wearing thin. Ergothians moved in to quell the disturbance.

“Why didn’t the savages just run for the forest?” Hanira said, gesturing at the Great Green in the distance.

Kiya said tartly, “These ‘savages’ are no more at home in the greenwood than you are, Syndic. They’re plainsmen, riders. The people of the forest would treat them as invaders!”

As he had vowed, Tol released the captives once they’d been disarmed. Some of his horde commanders protested, but he had no intention of burdening his army with prisoners. The freed nomads scattered rapidly as the ten thousand Ergothians veered north toward the Isle of Elms. Sunset was nearly upon them, but Tol would not delay. He was certain Chief Tokasin was the true leader of the nomad invasion. Mattohoc and the other chiefs, however great their hatred of the empire, were not charismatic enough to forge their disparate tribes into a single army. Tokasin had done that.

They rode through the night. Darkness made it impossible to hold formation. By daybreak Tol’s ten hordes were strung out over four leagues.

When the sun rose, its light revealed the Isle of Elms ahead. Towering trees, on a low hill, were isolated from the primeval growth of the Great Green by a half-league of rolling field. Morning light also picked out the iron blades and helmets of the hordes under Egrin’s command. Their numbers had not been sufficient to surround the Isle. The arrival of Tol’s hordes would remedy that situation.

The trumpeters sounded assembly. Tol needed to bring his straggling hordes together, and quickly. Egrin’s men were engaged. If Tokasin was smart as well as fierce, this would be no more than a rear guard, a small force left to hold off Egrin’s hordes while Tokasin and the main body slipped away.

At Hanira’s suggestion, Tol sent her Free Company on a wide sweep around the Isle of Elms, to prevent such an escape. The Tarsans, on fresher mounts than the hard-riding Ergothians, could move fast. Captain Anovenax vowed that not a single nomad would get through, then his disciplined company galloped away.

Valderra begged the syndic for permission to go with them. This request obviously surprised Hanira. Her herald was no soldier.

“I can fight,” the young woman insisted. She drew the slim saber from her gilded scabbard. “Let me go, mistress. I will do you honor!”

The syndic hesitated, then gave her leave to go. Valderra twisted her horse’s head around, and Hanira added, “But mind you come back, Val! It’s very hard to get good heralds these days!”

Smiling under her heavy helmet, Valderra galloped after her comrades.

“Your herald shows a warrior’s pride,” Kiya commented.

Hanira sighed. “She and Tindyll hope to wed. She doesn’t want to be parted from him, even in battle.”

Half the morning had gone before Tol’s scattered force had regrouped into fighting formation. Nerves and the day’s heat conspired to drench them all in sweat by the time he gave the order to advance.

Ranks of horsemen trotted through the trampled, brown grass. Any sounds of the fighting ahead were lost in the thunder of their own horses’ hooves. Veteran of many battles, Tol felt the old tightness in his throat, the hot tension forming in the pit of his stomach. Battle was never routine. It remained a hard, bloody business to which no sane person ever grew accustomed.

At his command, horns blared from the leading hordes. Answering blasts came from Egrin’s men. Arrows were flying, and riders surged back and forth along the edge of the elm grove. Some nomads had taken up positions among a tangle of windfall trees.

A messenger rode up and saluted.

“Lord Egrin requests Lord Tolandruth lead his men into the gap between the Isle of Elms and the Great Green, to cut off any escape attempt by the enemy,” he panted. This was the very route Anovenax’s Tarsans had taken.

“Tell Lord Egrin we will deploy as he suggests,” Tol replied. He added a warning about the Tarsans’ presence. It wouldn’t do for Egrin’s men to attack their new allies.

Horns blared commands right and left. The Ergothians drew their sabers, resting the dull edge against their ironclad shoulders. Surveying the lofty elms, Tol regretted sending Tylocost and the Juramona Militia on to Caergoth. Riders would never be able to get at the nomads hidden among the lofty trees, but the militia might.

Denser clouds of dust rose in front of them. Captain Anovenax’s force was already engaged. It wouldn’t do to let hired Tarsans have all the glory.

“Forward, at the canter!” Tol ordered.

He glanced once at Hanira. She was keeping pace, with Fenj a few steps ahead of her. He carried an oversized shield to defend her, if need be. It was astonishing that anyone as rich and powerful as a syndic of Tarsis would risk her life in someone else’s battle, but Hanira was no ordinary woman. Even so, Tol knew she wasn’t motivated by loyalty or love. She expected to profit from her deeds in some way.

The Free Company, a streak of brass amidst the gray and brown mass of nomads, was fighting furiously against a far larger band of plainsmen. Tol ordered the pace increased to a gallop, and with a roar his Ergothians charged forward. They were echeloned to the right to cut off any attempt by the nomads to reach the Great Green.

The last few paces before the clash, all sounds seemed to still. There was only the drum beat in Tol’s head, the sound of his own heart. Although loud, it was steady, not racing. He held Number Six high, point out. He might have been bellowing, but at that moment he could hear nothing.

— and then he collided with a nomad, horse to horse, blade to blade. His opponent wielded a captured Ergothian saber, and they traded several cuts until Tol shifted around and brought his saber down hard on the nomad’s wrist. Steel hissed through the man’s buckskins, and beyond. His hand, still gripping its stolen sword, fell and was lost amid the churning horses.

Tol slashed at the next nearest foe, a plainsman with a straight sword and leather-covered buckler. The nomad attacked, his point scoring a bloody line along Tol’s jaw, before Tol drove Number Six through the man’s small shield and into his chest. The fellow slid off his horse, eyes wide in astonishment.

The weight of Tol’s hordes washed over the enemy like high tide over a lonely rock. Pinched between the Tarsans and the Ergothians, the nomads were pushed back, half their number driven toward the Isle of Elms and the other half to the distant Great Green. Still they did not break, for these were Tokasin’s Firepath warriors, considered by all to be the fiercest fighters among the nomadic plainsmen. Their buckskin shirts bore a design, worked in red beads, of a stylized thunderbolt. Red beads likewise decorated their long hair, in imitation of their chief’s fiery hair.

The melee separated Hanira and Fenj from Tol, but Kiya remained by him, protecting his back. She took a hard knock from the hilt of a nomad sword and reeled in the saddle, blood welling in her mouth. Dazed, she found herself staring up at the summer sky. It was filled with towering clouds, sculpted white shapes against the hazy blue. As she grappled with her reins and fought to stay atop her tough plains pony, she was amazed to see the clouds changing shape. The white columns flowed into definite forms: separate individuals standing shoulder to shoulder and gazing down onto the battlefield with cloud-white eyes. The image was so clear Kiya froze, head thrown back, staring up.

The clang of blade meeting blade in front of her face shocked her out of her stupor. Tol had leaned over and fended off an attack by a black-bearded nomad.

“Kiya!” Tol roared. “Kiya, are you hurt?”

She shook her head and squeezed her eyelids shut so tightly her vision was blurred when she opened them again, but the cloud-people remained, staring implacably down on the enormous field of battle. This was no time to mention such a thing. The black-bearded plainsman was aiming another cut at her, so she brought up her sword and slashed him from neck to waist.

“I’m all right!” she shouted, pushing Tol away.

The nomads who had been cut off on the Great Green side of the meadow were annihilated. The remainder rode hard for the Isle of Elms. Whooping with victory, the Ergothians spurred after them, but when they neared the trees the pursuers faced a new attack.

Nomads on foot – women, children, and wounded warriors – concealed within the safety of the elms launched arrows, as well as deadly accurate stones from slings. Too many Ergothian saddles were emptied before Tol could make his jubilant men withdraw. The hordes moved out of range and mustered on the plain in full view of the shattered, exhausted nomads hiding in the trees.

A call sounded from the high-pitched Tarsan trumpets. Not knowing what the signal meant, Tol ordered his men to hold their places while he went to see what the Tarsans wanted.

The mercenaries were drawn up in a hollow square when Tol reached them. Captain Anovenax and several others knelt in the center of the square. The Tarsans parted ranks to allow Tol and Kiya to ride in.

“A brisk fight!” Tol declared. “Well done, Captain!”

At that moment, Hanira’s bodyguard Fenj stepped aside and Tol realized the focus of the kneeling group was a supine figure: Valderra. Her gilded breastplate was pierced through and stained red, her young face waxen in the harsh sunshine. Helmetless, her short golden hair was sweat-slicked and filthy. Captain Anovenax gently closed her staring eyes, his expression eloquent. He wept silently, but without shame.

Tol murmured, “I’m sorry, Syndic. What happened?”

“Too many foes, too little skill.” Hanira looked up, and her face seemed to have aged a decade.

A whirlwind of dust announced the arrival of a quartet of Ergothians. The lead Rider brought Egrin’s greetings, and the news that Tol was needed for a council of battle.

Tol acknowledged the message, and finally noticed Kiya. Her chin was stained with dried blood from a lower lip cut and growing puffy. More blood sprinkled her buckskin shirt. She was looking up at the sky dazedly.

He asked if she was well, and she assured him she was. Still concerned, Tol told her to remain here. Surprisingly, she agreed without argument.

Once Tol had ridden away to join the war council, Kiya glanced again at the sky, but the clouds were only clouds now. The images she had seen during the battle were gone.

When she looked down again, Kiya saw Hanira and her bodyguard had gone. Captain Anovenax had covered Valderra with his own golden mantle and was still kneeling beside her, holding her hand. His unembarrassed emotion surprised her. Ergothian warlords prided themselves on their hardened feelings, as did Dom-shu warriors. Apparently, Tarsans did not. Dismounting, she led her pony over to the grieving man.

“I sorrow for your loss,” she said. “The syndic has departed?”

“She had to take her leave.” Tindyll’s voice was hoarse, freighted with terrible sadness. “Her sorrow is very great.”

Kiya had never much liked Hanira. She muttered, “Off to hire a new herald, I suppose.”

The captain gave her a dark-eyed glare. “You don’t understand,” he said, choking. “Valderra was not merely her herald. She was Hanira’s daughter.”

Chapter 16

WALLS OF STONE

Ten thousand mounted warriors crowded the square before the imperial palace, completely covering the mosaic of Ackal Ergot’s victories that decorated its vast surface. They were arrayed in two huge blocks, separated by a narrow avenue. Drawn from the city’s garrison, they represented a quarter of Daltigoth’s defenders. Their scarlet mantles were like a sea of blood; their polished iron helmets gleamed. Lining the steps and stone plinths on either side of the palace doors were a thousand drummers, pounding in unison. The thunderous booming reverberated off the walls of the Inner City and shook the palace down to its foundation. High above the scene, watching from a turret window, Valaran could feel the drumming through the soles of her slippers, feel it in her very bones.

It might have been a stirring sight, glorious and terrible, but Valaran knew only a growing, suffocating sense of desperation. Two days had passed since the emperor’s sudden recovery of mental clarity. His energy in that time had been breathtaking. Man by man, he had culled the garrison of its best warriors, made battle plans with his warlords – the ones he hadn’t banished or executed – and ordered a huge amount of food and arms from the imperial stores. He also reversed a lax trend in his household and forbade his family to set foot outside their private quarters.

Yet another custom dating back to Ackal Ergot’s day – the confining of the empress, consorts, and their children – had begun as a means to protect the imperial family, and preserve the purity of the dynasty’s bloodline. But Ackal V invoked the Purity Sanction to prevent Valaran from intriguing behind his back. She couldn’t be certain exactly what he knew about her plotting, and the uncertainty was maddening. As with all his enemies, he used her doubt to keep her off balance.

Now he passed two calm evenings with his wives and children, playing the role of good husband and stern father. Valaran found his insincere serenity more unbearable than his casual cruelty, for it left her in an agony of suspense, never knowing when his mood might shift and he would order some new outrage. He took Crown Prince Dalar on his lap while continuing a conversation with his other children, and Valaran’s blood ran cold. Seeing her son in his hands was like watching the boy menaced by a deadly serpent. The question wasn’t if Dalar would get hurt, but when.

At the end of last night’s family dinner, Ackal V had risen from the table at last – his appetite had been prodigious since the breaking of Mandes’s spell – and called for Tathman. The Wolf captain arrived and stood by his master, a silent, hulking menace. Then Ackal addressed his family.

“I leave tomorrow to destroy the invaders,” he announced. “But you need not fear. In my absence, both the Purity Sanction and my Wolves will ensure your safety. I could not face the enemy without knowing all I hold is safe.”

Valaran fumed silently. Not only was he imprisoning her in the palace, he was setting his killers to watch over her. Tathman’s men would not dare lay hands on her, but her every action would be reported to the emperor.

Ackal took up a golden goblet filled with nectar. He drank it slowly, as though savoring the liquid’s delicate flavor. He was up to something, keeping them together like this. Valaran could see in his eyes it was the continuing suspense he savored, not the drink. Finally, he let the other boot drop.

“Crown Prince Dalar will accompany me.”

“Sire, no!” Valaran was on her feet before she was even aware of having moved.

His false smile vanished. “The boy goes where I say he goes! He will see his first campaign, and what better place for that than with his father?”

Valaran could barely remember the rest of that horrible evening. Ackal’s decision was unprecedented, his motives hardly paternal. Dalar, so small, so fragile, was to be a hostage to her good behavior. More than ever she thought the emperor must have learned of her seditious activities. Since recovering his wits, he had been closeted with advisors, spy-masters, and unsavory practitioners of magic. Had he divined the cause of his own madness – the same evil he’d visited on his own brother, Ackal IV?

There was no better news from the College of Wizards. Helbin’s successor as chief of the Red Robes, the wizard Eremin, reported they had at last broken through the veil that so long shrouded events in the east. They had seen imperial forces driving the nomads from the empire.

Eremin did not know the horde names, and so described the standards they’d seen. As Ackal V identified each one – the Plains Panthers, the Firebrands, the Corij Rangers, the Black Viper Horde – he grew more angry. All were landed hordes, the provincial gentlemen he loathed and had refused to call to duty.

Eremin was astonished by the emperor’s furious reaction to what he believed would be welcome news. With nomads raging throughout the Eastern and Riverland hundreds, surely it was better that the local hordes raise themselves, rather than allow savages to rampage unchecked.

The Red Robe could not tell his liege who led the landed hordes. The visions had not been that precise. He promised to work hard to improve them, but it was plain Ackal V already knew who was responsible for the uprising.

All this Valaran remembered as she watched the warriors in the plaza await the arrival of their supreme commander. Beset with doubts and fears, she held on to Tol as her lifeline. His love for her and his hatred of Ackal V were the greatest assets she had left.

In her mind she saw him, not as he’d been when they parted, beaten and lying in the back of a creaking cart, but as he had been when they first met, a vibrant young warrior, newly come to Daltigoth for the dedication of the Tower of High Sorcery. It wasn’t his broad shoulders or rough-hewn looks that had ignited her love, but his open mind and good heart. Too good, really. Born far from the fount of power, the peasant’s son was ill equipped to match wits with Prince Nazramin. Time and bitter exile should have cured Tol of his naivete, but she hoped the goodness remained.

Valaran’s thoughts were interrupted by the concerted roar from ten thousand throats, which silenced the pounding drums. The emperor had appeared.

Ackal V wore armor enameled in crimson and inlaid with gold. His head was bare, displaying thick red hair untouched by gray. The roaring cheer continued, grew even louder, and Valaran winced against the painful volume. Tyrant though he was, Ackal V was revered by the many Riders of the Great Horde. The emperor descended the palace steps to his waiting troops, revealing the tiny figure who followed behind him. Valaran caught her breath.

Dalar, dressed in a breastplate and helmet made just for him, moved hesitantly. The roar of the fighting men frightened him. Valaran’s hands ached to snatch her child back, for his sake and hers. All she could do was grip the ledge of the window before her, until the stone cut her palms.

Ackal’s horse waited at the foot of the palace steps. Sirrion, named for the god of passion and fire, stood sixteen hands. He was one of the special royal breed whose hide was a striking shade of ruby red. His mane and tail were a darker oxblood, and his broad, black hooves had been polished until they gleamed. Only those of imperial blood could ride horses of the Ackal Breed.

The senior warlord of the Warblade Horde stood by Sirrion, a position of great honor. Bending forward, the warlord cupped his hands. The emperor placed a booted foot in them and swung onto the magnificent horse. Another soldier hoisted young Dalar onto the pillion behind him. Alarmed at finding himself so high off the ground, the little boy clutched his father’s back.

Ackal V drew his saber. The chanting of the warriors ceased. The abrupt silence left Valaran’s ears ringing.

“Forward, Ergoth!” commanded Ackal.

The ten thousand horsemen took quite some time to funnel out of the Inner City gate, but Valaran remained at the window until all were gone.

Where in Chaos’s name was Helbin? She had to know what was happening in the east. More importantly, where was Tol?

*

The nomads clung stubbornly to their green bulwark, fending off sortie after sortie by the Ergothians. By this time the hordes had encircled the Isle of Elms completely, but every attempt to storm the forest stronghold, on foot or horse, was bloodily repulsed.

Night fell. A steer was roasted. Over beef and beer, the Ergothian commanders debated what to do next. There were two camps: those who wanted to attack again immediately, and those who thought it better to besiege the nomads and starve them out.

Egrin, to Tol’s surprise, was in the attack faction. Usually a cautious tactician, Egrin was not given to fire-eating. When he counseled immediate attack, Tol wanted to know why.

Firelight played on Egrin’s features. His half-elven heritage, carefully concealed from all but Tol, had kept him a vigorous warrior some three decades after their first meeting. In spite of their closeness, Tol knew almost nothing of Egrin’s life before that time. The former marshal was as taciturn as a Dom-shu.

“We don’t know what resources the nomads may have,” Egrin said, “but Lord Argonnel says there’s a spring in the grove, so they do have water.” Argonnel nodded. He owned large tracts of this land and knew it well.

Egrin went on. “Our men can’t sustain themselves unless we move and forage. If we besiege the nomads, we may end up being hungrier and thirstier than they are.” He spat into the fire. “Worse, while we delay here, the treasure caravan is making its way to Caergoth. I, for one, do not want to leave the caravan too long in the hands of a renegade elf and hundreds of kender.”

The other warlords agreed. Tol turned to Hanira, seated on his left and asked her opinion. She’d been silent through the entire council, eating little but imbibing quite a lot.

Face rosy from wine, she said flatly, “They’re savages. They should be slain to the last man.”

“If that means attack, then I agree,” said Kiya, on Tol’s right.

Tol also agreed. However, they needed a practical means for forcing their way into the Isle of Elms. They had no way of knowing how many nomads were there. Best guess was five or six thousand, but not all were fighters. Nomads traveled with their entire tribe, so a goodly number hidden in the elms would be old folks, children, and the wounded of earlier battles. Trapped as they were, the nomads could be expected to resist to the bitter end.

They wrangled, as old soldiers will, over the best way to assault the Isle. Simultaneous attack on multiple points was best, said some. Others were positive that quiet infiltration under cover of darkness would bring victory. Disguise a small group as nomads and send them in to confuse the defenders.

As they argued, Hanira left. Lord Mittigorn, returning from a trip beyond the circle of firelight, saw her heading in the direction of her pavilion in the Free Company’s camp.

“Just as well,” said Trudo. “Women and foreigners have no place at a council of war.” Kiya glared, but the callous old Rider did not apologize.

Egrin’s plan of infiltration was close to winning the day – fifty warriors would dress as nomads and sneak into the woods – when Pagas lifted his head suddenly.

“Something burns,” he announced, sniffing the wind.

The scent was stronger and greener than the dying campfire before them, which had been laid with dry wood. A freshening breeze brought more smoke. Mittigorn Cried out and pointed to the distant Isle of Elms. The formerly dark wall of trees stood out starkly against a dull red sky.

Fire. The night wind was driving flames toward the trees.

Tol took off at a dead run, Kiya at his heels. The warlords followed.

The source of the fire was soon discovered. Tarsans in brass breastplates were jogging through the waist-high grass, setting the scrub alight with torches. Tol grabbed one and spun him around, demanding an explanation.

The Tarsan stammered, “I’m following my mistress’s orders, my lord!”

Cursing the syndic, Tol ordered the man to smother his torch, then he and Kiya hurried through the smoldering grass, putting a stop to the efforts of the other Tarsans. Each told the same story: the fire had been ordered by Syndic Hanira.

Before long they came upon the woman herself. She stood in a patch of burned grass, a blazing torch in each hand. Her dark purple gown was black with ash. Her hair was unbound, and long black tendrils blew wildly around her face. She was singing a Tarsan lullaby at the top of her lungs.

He shouted her name and she turned to him. Her eyes, usually a warm honey color, were like dark holes in her ashen face. Tears had made tracks in the soot on her cheeks.

“Let them burn!” she screamed. “Murdering savages! Let them all burn!”

Tol feared she would get her wish. The fire, fanned by the night wind, had become unstoppable. It devoured the dry grass and caressed the dark trunks of the ancient elms. The nomads did not wait for the fire to engulf the wood. On horseback and afoot they fled the forest, racing for the faraway shelter of the Great Green.

Egrin, Trudo, and the other warlords ordered the Riders to horse. Argonnel’s men met the mounted enemy and drove them back. The nomads surged out again, striking Mittigorn’s Black Viper Horde.

Kiya rode up, bringing Tol’s horse. “Come, Husband. The battle is joined.”

As Tol mounted, Hanira dropped her spent torches and held out her hands toward the fire, as if warming herself. Kiya shuddered.

“She looks like Azalla herself!”

Azalla, the Fire Lady, was the Dom-shu goddess of revenge and evil, said to be the child of Argon and the Dragonqueen. Nomads had dared kill Hanira’s daughter, and the mistress of the Golden House would not be denied vengeance. Had it happened in Tarsis, she would’ve hired assassins to exact her revenge. Here, on the plains of Ergoth, she took matters into her own hands.

Kiya and Tol galloped off to join Pagas’s horde. So desperately did the nomads fight, they came within a heartbeat of breaking the Ergothian line before the Plains Panthers arrived to reinforce Mittigorn.

The fight was fierce, but brief. When the last nomad warrior was unhorsed, those remaining on foot finally ended their resistance. Tol halted the slaughter. He left Egrin to oversee the sorting of the prisoners, and to look for Tokasin among the captured, then he himself went to search for the chief among the fallen.

The Isle of Elms was fully ablaze now, lighting the scene with a garish orange glow. Kiya, riding with Tol through the battle site, watched as the roiling smoke rose skyward, obscuring the stars. The gray columns came together to form figures like those she’d seen before: giant human shapes standing shoulder to shoulder and looking down on her and everyone else. They resembled the stone statues she’d seen in Daltigoth, inert yet watchful. She wondered if the smoke-figures were gods.

“Eh? Gods?” asked Tol, his attention on the bodies sprawled on the ground.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, as she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “It’s nothing.”

They found Tokasin. He lay dead amidst a circle of warriors who had died trying to defend him. When Tol turned him over, they realized the chief had taken his own life at the end, by falling on his sword. Tokasin knew the fate of enemy commanders captured by Ergoth.

Day came, and the woods still burned. Elms, many hundreds of years old, flamed like giant candles, and eventually toppled over, sending up gouts of smoke and glowing embers. The heat from the hard, heavy wood was intense, keeping everyone well back. The animals in the grove had long since fled – birds, deer, rabbits, even a wild boar or two had dashed out while the Ergothians sorted out their victory.

Tol sat on the blackened turf back to back with Kiya. She was asleep. He drank from a wineskin while Lord Trudo reported.

“One thousand, twenty mounted enemy warriors dead,” recited the commander of the Oaken Shield Horde, consulting the strip of bark on which the computations had been scratched. “Of the nomads on foot, six hundred ninety-seven were killed. One thousand, two hundred sixteen are our prisoners.”

Altogether, not quite three thousand had been in the woods, fewer than Tol had estimated. He asked Trudo about their own losses.

“Four hundred nine killed and five hundred forty-one wounded to a greater or lesser degree.” Trudo stroked his white beard complacently. “Not so bad, my lord.”

Tol took the bark tally from him, moving with care so as not to disturb Kiya’s rest. He wished he could sleep, but knew his next task could not be put off any longer.

“Bring the syndic to me.”

Hanira and her bodyguard Fenj arrived. They were accompanied by Egrin.

“My lord,” the old marshal said, “I have come to speak on the syndic’s behalf.”

Hanira, red-eyed, soot-stained, and haggard, said coldly, “I don’t need your help.”

Undeterred, Egrin directed his words to Tol. “I know you’re angry, my lord, but Syndic Hanira’s actions, harsh though they were, resolved a pressing problem. We were debating how best to come to grips with the enemy, and she supplied the way.”

“She meant to kill them all.”

“Pity I didn’t succeed.” Hanira brushed lank tendrils of hair from her face.

Tol, mindful of her loss, kept his voice calm. “I did not ask you to come and fight,” he said. “You joined of your own accord. You agreed to accept my authority and obey my orders. Your actions last night were treacherous, vindictive, and insubordinate. The fact that you resolved the matter in our favor does not excuse you!”

From behind him, Kiya said sleepily, “Send her home.”

Since she was awake, Tol stood and handed Kiya the wineskin. “No. The syndic will stay.”

“You think to punish me like some errant servant?” Hanira sneered.

“I don’t intend to punish you.” Not in the way she was thinking, at any rate. Tol locked gazes with her. “You joined this campaign, Syndic, and I expect you to see it through. But if you ever disobey my orders, or take such a deed upon yourself again, I’ll clap you in irons!”

Silent Fenj tensed, ready to interpose himself between his mistress and Tol, but Hanira suddenly laughed.

“By Shinare, I believe you! There’s not a Tarsan general or admiral who’d dare, but you would!”

Their exchange seemed to restore a measure of Hanira’s poise. She straightened, and her manner underwent a subtle shift. Although still dirty and disheveled, she seemed more like the woman Tol remembered.

“I will send Tindyll to you for our orders,” she said briskly. “Are we bound next for Daltigoth?”

The abrupt change surprised Tol, but he answered her readily enough. “We have one stop to make first,” he said.

“We have business in Caergoth,” Kiya put in. “A treasure to reclaim.”

*

At that moment, Tylocost beheld the pale walls of Caergoth. The southward march of the treasure caravan had been without undue incident. The vigilance of the Juramona Militia and Tylocost’s active cavalry escort discouraged any from approaching too closely.

The ranks of the Royal Loyal Militia dwindled as the city drew near. No one ever actually saw a kender leave, but a handful vanished each day. The weird desertions were not confined to the kender; the Household Guard evaporated as well. Some days the only sign of Casberry’s personal guard was the dwarf doctor and centaur standard bearer, who could always be located by his uncommon stench. By the time the towers of Caergoth came into view, the kender queen led barely a hundred followers, most of whom were hired humans. She wasn’t distressed. In fact, she acted as if nothing untoward had happened. For his part, Tylocost was happy to have fewer kender to deal with.

They approached the empire’s second largest city with caution, using the line of hills northwest of the city to hide their line of march. Studying the walls from a hilltop just over a quarter-league away, Tylocost found it strange they had encountered no Riders from the city’s garrison. With bakali and nomad invaders about, warriors should be patrolling the countryside.

With his more than human vision, Tylocost could see the city gates were shut, save for one, the Dermount Gate on the north side. It was guarded by several hundred troops. A thin stream of people came and went through the portal.

The elf’s plan was to wait for Tol, keeping out of sight until his arrival. Like any good general, though, he craved information, and wished he could know what was happening in the city.

He made this comment in Zala’s hearing. With a shrug, she said, “I could find out if you like. I could enter the city.”

Since her father was a resident of Caergoth, Zala had a glean – a brass token that identified her and allowed her to pass in and out of the city. Given the threat hanging over Caergoth, her glean might no longer be honored. She was willing to try. She could find out whatever Tylocost wanted to know, and look for her father at the same time.

She put aside her weapons, save for a belt knife, and commended Helbin to Tylocost’s care. The wizard had been distracted. He’d spent much of the day toying with a small glass mirror, fitted in a hinged wooden box. It appeared to be an activity that caused him great frustration.

“You watch yourself, girl,” Tylocost told her.

Zala felt strangely pleased by his concern. The Silvanesti was arrogant and opinionated, but there was something about him that made her want to please him. If he weren’t so hard to look at —

She ruthlessly suppressed that thought. No good could come of such feelings.

Leaving the hidden caravan behind, she started down the hill toward the city. As she descended the slope, she picked up speed, until she was jogging rapidly. She’d been too long in the company of soldiers, refugees, and captives. The exhilaration of being on her own flooded through her. For a moment she allowed herself to think of freeing her father and running away with him, away from unsightly, vexing elves, notions of honor, warlords, and kender. If she ran without stopping, beyond the empire, to the end of the world, perhaps she would find peace.

By the time she reached the queue of people waiting to pass through the Dermount Gate, she’d put away such extraneous thoughts. Instead, she concentrated on appearing to be nothing more than a young woman bent on visiting her aged parent.

All those entering Caergoth were searched. Soldiers carried out this process with rapid, rough thoroughness. Packs were opened, their contents dumped on the ground; pushcarts were upended, babies’ swaddling was groped. Faced with bared swords, no one protested.

The officer in charge of the gate guards examined Zala’s glean and pronounced it outdated.

“What’s your business in Caergoth.

“I’m visiting my father. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Her mixed heritage gave rise to ribald comments from the soldiers. The harassed officer growled at them to shut up. He daubed the glean with a spot of white paint.

“This means you have twenty-four hours. If you’re caught in the city after that, you’ll be thrown in prison as a suspected spy.”

She nodded curtly, moving on.

The city beyond the thick wall had changed since her last visit. Caergoth had always been an orderly city, with wide, clean streets and well-scrubbed stone buildings. No longer. Now the lanes were crowded with people, wagons, horses, and livestock. Half the population of the province seemed to be trying to squeeze within the walls. It was obvious they did not know that Lord Tolandruth and the landed hordes had driven out the raiding nomads.

Her father lived on the top floor of a rooming house in the scribes’ district. His two rooms were small, but cheap, clean, and except on festival days, quiet. He wouldn’t be home – the empress had had him taken to the citadel – but Zala headed there first anyway. If possible, she wanted to wash and change clothes before going to the governor’s palace. Tiring of the lewd and ugly comments from passers-by, she untucked her hair from behind her ears so it would hide their shape.

The trip through the clogged streets to the scribes’ quarter took an age. Market squares, once lined with neat, widely spaced rows of stalls and pushcarts, were now crammed with tents and squalid with the offal of thousands of squatters. Pickpockets and cutpurses worked the mobs. After fending off a fourth attempt to steal her purse, Zala grew so annoyed she broke the pickpocket’s wrist and left him howling on the pavement.

The last square between her and the scribes’ district was the city’s largest, Luin’s Field. Bounded on three sides by Caergoth’s major temples, it was a sacred space used for religious ceremonies and imperial parades. It was always kept spotlessly clean, with not even the smallest bit of litter allowed.

When Zala beheld Luin’s Field, however, shock froze her in place. The square had been turned into an army camp. Warriors were quartered along its sides, and its center was taken up by huge cages, row upon row of stout wooden posts joined together by iron strapping. The cages were filled with people. Some, clad in buckskins, were plainly nomads, but others looked to be city folk or peasants. At least a thousand captives were being held in Caergoth’s most sacred square.

An Ergothian soldier, trying to get by her, asked sarcastically, “Something ailing you, girl?”

Instantly, Zala assumed a slightly hunched posture and looked at him with wide eyes. Stammering, she asked, “Who are those people, sir? Why are they here?”

As she’d guessed from his voice, the soldier was an older man. Her shy, deferential manner caused his tone and expression to soften. She imagined that he had daughters of his own at home.

“We need every room in the citadel to house the garrison,”

He said. “Lord Wornoth emptied the citadel dungeon and put the scum here.”

After admonishing her to “get herself on home,” the soldier moved away, and Zala approached the cages. In the general confusion, she was able to get within a few paces. She walked slowly along, looking anxiously for her father among the wretched captives.

“Has anyone seen Kaeph the scrivener?” she asked as she walked. “An old man with white hair and a bald spot on his crown? Anyone know Kaeph the scrivener?”

For a long stretch all she heard were negatives. Finally, one of the prisoners, a coarse-looking woman with a city accent, answered in the affirmative. Zala stepped closer to her cage.

“I seen him,” the woman repeated. “He’s in with the condemned – the cages around the corner, facing the Temple of Corij.”

Zala thanked her. The woman thrust a hand through the bars, snatching at Zala’s sleeve. “A favor for a favor! Tell Mextro I’m here! Mextro, the innkeeper at the Golden Galley! My name —!”

Her plea was cut off as a soldier thrust the butt end of a spear through the bars and struck her in the belly. The woman fell back. Under the guard’s unfriendly glare, Zala moved on.

As befit a warrior nation, the Temple of Corij was the largest and most splendid in Caergoth. Built of white marble, it was floored in red granite, to honor all the warriors’ blood spilled for the empire. The temple rose in a series of sloping terraces, making a step-sided pyramid. At the pinnacle, in a small columned portico, an ever-burning flame was tended by the warrior-priests of Corij.

The cage facing the temple was isolated from the other enclosures. Warriors on horseback circled it. Friends and family of those within hovered outside the perimeter of guards, looking for loved ones among the many prisoners.

Zala called her father’s name, but could hardly make herself heard over the cries of the others around her. “Kaeph the scrivener! Where is Kaeph the scrivener?” she shouted.

“He may be dead already.”

The words had come from a woman prisoner sitting close to the bars a few paces further along. Zala walked quickly toward her. The woman was very tall, even sitting down. Her hair, cut to chin length like Zala’s own, was brown, and she wore the embroidered deerskins of a forest woman. Her accent was urbane, also like Zala’s.

“Why do you say that?” Zala demanded.

“Many have been beheaded – the latest batch was three days ago. Go to the citadel, you can see the heads.”

“Do you know Kaeph the scrivener?”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anyone but the Dom-shu I came with.”

Zala recognized that name. Lord Tolandruth’s constant companion, the female warrior who called him “Husband,” was a Dom-shu. Perhaps she could persuade this sullen giantess to help her if they proved to have a mutual acquaintance.

“I know a woman of your tribe,” she said. “Her name is Kiya. Very tall, like you, but with blonde hair.”

The Dom-shu’s weary gloom vanished instantly. “Father! Come here!” she shouted, bolting to her feet. Her head touched the bars roofing the cage.

A tribesman joined her. His yellow hair and beard were streaked with white, but he moved smoothly through the shuffling prisoners.

At the female prisoner’s request, Zala repeated what she’d said.

The elder’s face glowed with relief. “She lives! She is free! What of the Son of My Life?”

The Dom-shu woman leaned close to the bars and murmured, “Does Kiya travel with a man, brown hair, brown eyes, a short beard, and nearly as broad in the shoulders as he is tall?”

“Yes. Lord Tol —”

“Keep that name between your teeth,” the Dom-shu woman snapped, then grinned widely. “The gods still love him, and his friends, too, I pray! Girl, I am Miya, sister of Kiya, and wife of that man you know!”

Chapter 17

GOOD FOR NOTHING

All that remained of the Isle of Elms was a few score tree trunks, upright but limbless and charred black. They stood, stark and lonely, across a great scar of burned land. Upwind from the smoldering remains, the Army of the East was arrayed on the plain in parade formation. The time had come to deal with the captive nomads.

As with the nomads captured after the battle of Juramona, infamous malefactors, those who had committed specific outrages against the people of Juramona and other towns, were identified and culled from the prisoners. These thirty or so nomads received summary justice. The rest of the defeated were stripped of horses, weapons, and armor and turned loose.

From horseback, Tol regarded the sullen crowd of captives before him. His expression was grim.

“I give you mercy this once,” he said. “If any of you enters the empire under arms again, you will receive no quarter. Now go home!”

Riding away at Tol’s side, Egrin asked, “How do you know they’ll leave?”

“The land for leagues around has been stripped bare. They must go home to hunt and fish, or starve.”

Egrin cast a glance back over his shoulder. As predicted, the mass of defeated plainsmen was moving off to the east, a gray-brown body hugging the scorched plain.

*

Zala returned to Tylocost in a fever of excitement. She had found her father, alive but ill, in the same cage that held the Dom-shu. Once she told them who he was, the Dom-shu prisoners agreed to look out for him, and she swore on her life to return with help. They told her to hurry. The governor was fond of staging random executions, to intimidate the restless refugees sheltering in his city. There was no telling how much time the Dom-shu or Zala’s father had.

There were eleven Dom-shu in the cage: Miya, her father, and the small retinue of warriors who had accompanied them. Miya introduced her father as Voyarunta, a name she seemed to find amusing. As Zala did not speak their language, she missed the joke. The Dom-shu had been captured by a company of imperial horsemen, riding south from a losing encounter with Tokasin’s nomads. To Ergothian eyes, a barbarian was a barbarian; they made no distinction between forest-dwelling Dom-shu and plains-dwelling Firepath. When Miya pointed out she was Lord Tolandruth’s wife and the Dom-shu were at peace with the empire, all she got for her temerity was a boot between her shoulders. She and her people had been languishing in Caergoth’s cages for eight days.

“This is what I get for chasing that fool husband of mine,” Miya grumbled to Zala.

“You insisted on going,” said her father. “All was calm in the village until you decided to leave the Great Green and search for your sister and husband.”

“You did not have to come along!”

The forester chief folded his brawny arms. “Am I to let my last daughter go wandering across the grassland without a strong blade at her side? What kind of father would do such a thing?”

“I didn’t need you following me! You only slowed me down!”

“You’d be in a nameless grave by now if I hadn’t come.”

Father and daughter were still arguing when Zala stole away. Despite the threat of random beheadings and the days they’d spent in the fetid, uncomfortable cage, the foresters were in good spirits. Their faith in Lord Tolandruth was unshakable.

Zala’s father, on the other hand, was in very poor health. A cough had settled in his chest, and he’d grown pale and haggard. He could not remain much longer in the open, at the mercy of the sun’s heat and the night’s damp, living in filthy conditions with meager food and water.

Tylocost received her fervent outpouring of news with his usual aplomb. He evinced more interest in the conditions inside Caergoth than the condition of the prisoners. Zala paced up and down before the Silvanesti and Queen Casberry as she described what she’d seen: the crush of refugees, the nearly impassable streets, the patrolling soldiers.

“How many soldiers?” he asked.

She shrugged, and he made an offhanded remark about ignorant girls who couldn’t count beyond their own fingers and toes.

Zala backhanded him. She lashed out so quickly Tylocost was caught completely by surprise. Her hand connected solidly with his cheek, rocking his head back and leaving a livid impression of her long, tapering fingers. Militiamen around them snickered and Casberry applauded.

“My father’s life is in peril, elf! Save your insults for later!” Zala spat.

Tylocost made no move, just stood, hands at his side, staring at the shaking huntress. His face was bright red. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“What would you have us do?” he said, his voice low. “We don’t have sufficient strength to attack the open gate, much less storm the city. And the treasure must be guarded. Lord Tolandruth will be here soon —”

“I’ll free them,” Casberry said matter-of-factly.

The kender queen stood up in her chair. She straightened her orange shirt and buckskin trousers, tugged at the bottom of her leather vest – this one dyed sky blue – and stepped out onto the ground.

“I’ll free the prisoners.”

Tylocost, his acid tongue temporarily muted, merely asked her how.

Her eyes vanished into pools of wrinkles as she smiled. He thought she looked very like a cheerful prune. “Not by storming gates and attacking cities,” she said sagely. “We’ll do it the kender way. All I need is the Royal Loyal Militia.”

“What Royal Loyal Militia?” Tylocost protested. “Most of your people deserted long ago.”

Casberry looked askance at him, saying to Zala, “Slap him again, honey.”

In spite of herself, Zala laughed. Tylocost kept a wary eye on her.

“Not one of my Royal Loyals has deserted!” Casberry proclaimed. “They’re about, even if your dull senses can’t see them. They’re looking around, listening. All I have to do is call, and …” She waved a hand. “Come nightfall, we’ll free your father and Lord Tolandruth’s big wife.”

“We?” said Tylocost.

“Certainly. What kind of queen would I be if I sent my brave troops into peril alone?”

The Silvanesti imagined the gnarled old queen, decked out in one of her astonishing outfits, entering Caergoth in her sedan chair and proclaiming, “Make way for the Queen of Hylo!” He shook his head to dislodge the ludicrous picture.

To his amazement, the queen appeared to have been telling the truth. Although she made no proclamation, nor sent out any heralds, kender began returning to the hidden camp. Over the course of the day, they arrived – alone or in small groups – bearing whatever odds and ends they had ‘found’ while wandering. They filed past their monarch, and Casberry greeted each by name. She asked particular ones to volunteer for the mission to Caergoth. All agreed cheerfully, without hesitation or questions.

“They’re quite fearless, aren’t they?” Zala said admiringly.

Tylocost, perched on a nearby log and studying a sketch map of the vicinity, muttered, “Fools are never afraid.”

Casberry explained the job to her hand-picked group of forty and told them to gather at sunset on the hill where Tylocost had first surveyed the city’s defenses. The kender troop asked no questions, so the meeting was brief. Then they drifted away to do whatever it was that kender did.

Excited by the prospect of freeing her father, Zala knew she must try to rest. The upcoming night likely would be long and strenuous. She spread a blanket under a willow tree, lay down, and covered her eyes with one arm. Not ten breaths later, she felt someone approach.

“I must speak with you, lady.”

Helbin. Not moving, she said, “So speak, and be quick about it.”

He said nothing, but she could hear him fidgeting and shifting his weight. With a sigh, she opened her eyes and sat up. Immediately, he sat down on the end of her blanket.

“Take me with you to Caergoth,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“My spells are gone, and I must contact the empress!”

His desperation was so great, she grew curious. “What do you mean, gone? What happened to your magic?”

“It’s been negated. I don’t know how. I must consult my colleagues in the Order in Caergoth. They can send a message to the empress, apprising her of my position. I must go with you.”

He saw the denial in her face even before she spoke. Leaning closer, he said, “Please, you must help me! You must understand that more is at stake than the life of your father, however dear he is to you! The fate of millions depends on my communicating with the empress!”

“You’re a learned man. Can’t you just” — she waved a hand — “restore your ruined talismans and trinkets?”

“That would take too long!” he exclaimed, then grimaced, trying to contain his impatience. “The magic mirror alone must be consecrated during a conjunction of Solin and Luin, which won’t occur again for forty days. I am reduced to purely mortal means. You must help me! Name your price, I will pay it!”

Beyond the wizard’s shoulder, Zala saw Tylocost approaching. He carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in the crook of his arm. When he saw Helbin was with her, he stopped.

“Fine. Be on the hilltop with the kender at the appointed time,” she muttered to the wizard. “Now go!”

“May the gods bless you!”

“Save your blessings till after you hear my price.”

Looking slightly alarmed, Helbin withdrew. Tylocost came forward.

“Everyone’s paying court to you today,” he said. “Was Master Helbin pleading his suit?”

The suggestion was so absurd Zala laughed. The sound drew a quick smile from Tylocost. Kneeling, he held out the bundle he carried. “This is for you,” he said quietly.

She unwrapped the oblong object warily and was taken aback when it was revealed to be a sword – a truly fine short sword, with damascened blade and a hilt handsomely chased with silver filigree. It must have come from the treasure trove.

“Why?” she asked, looking up at him.

The elf had difficulty answering. Finally, he said, “In a crowded city street, a short blade will be more useful than that saber you carry.” Standing quickly, he added, “The kender have similar weapons. Good luck tonight!”

He strode away. Zala studied the weapon. The blade was leaf-shaped, designed for close-quarter stabbing. A small pale amethyst was set in the pommel. Under the circumstances, it was a thoughtful gift, not to mention an exquisitely beautiful one. Was Tylocost trying to apologize for his past behavior? Or did his gift mean something more?

She forced herself to put the weapon aside and lay down again. Sunset would be here all too soon, and she needed to sleep.

In spite of her best efforts, Zala’s mind would not be stilled. Her thoughts went round and round as she tried to make sense of the elf’s motives – and her feelings about him. She got no rest at all.

*

The sun shone through gaps in the low-hanging clouds, sending scorching beams down onto the Ergothian army. The Riders of the Great Horde moved forward slowly, armor clanking, horses breathing hard in the heat. The enormous earthen mound of the bakali fortress reared up ahead of them. There was as yet no sign of the lizard-men themselves.

Ackal V, atop Sirrion’s ruby-red back, rode in the center of his army, surrounded by scores of warlords, aides, and his personal escort of one hundred archers. Heralds bearing the standards of sixty-six hordes were arrayed around the emperor. Most of the hordes were from the northern and western provinces.

Prince Dalar rode on a war-horse beside his father. The boy’s legs were barely long enough to allow him to sit astride the great charger. He swayed in the saddle, from the pre-cariousness of his position as well as the heat. Sweat trickled from beneath his miniature helm.

A horn bleated. Dust swirled as a courier galloped up. A member of the emperor’s entourage met the rider and relayed his message to Ackal V.

“Your Majesty! Marshal Tumult has the enemy in sight!”

Havoc Tumult, Marshal of the Seascapes Hundred, was leading the advance guard. He had some of the best remaining hordes under his command, including the Wind Riders, who were peerless scouts; the Red Thunders; and the Bulls of Ergoth, no man of which could be shorter than two paces tall. Riding straight toward the enemy’s stronghold, Marshal Tumult had come upon a sizable body of bakali, arrayed in circles to resist cavalry attack. He now awaited his liege’s orders on how to proceed.

Ackal V considered how to respond. It was typical of the bakali to offer a sizable force as bait, to lure the Ergothians into a trap. They’d played this trick over and over.

“My compliments to Marshal Tumult,” he finally said. “Tell him to keep the enemy in sight, but do not engage.” To another warlord he said, “Who has the forward elements of the right wing?”

“Lord Janar, with the Deathriders.”

“Bring him to me.”

While he waited for Lord Janar to ride back to him, Ackal V ordered the army to halt. Sixty thousand warriors reined up their steeds and waited, restive in the face of the enemy.

Janar and his retinue arrived in the inevitable cloud of dust. They saluted with drawn daggers.

Ackal V raised his voice for all to hear. “My lord, there is your goal.” He pointed to the mud-colored mound rising above the trees. “No matter what happens, to me or the rest of the army, you are to breach that stronghold, and destroy anyone and anything in your path! Do not look back, Janar – fix your eyes forward and smite the invader!”

The emperor’s loud commands agitated his horse, but he controlled Sirrion’s prancing with ease. “That is your task. Succeed, or never come before me again!”

Lord Janar’s round, sunburned face tightened. He saluted again and galloped away with his retinue.

Once they were gone, Ackal V turned to his nearest aide. The emperor was smiling. “Inform Lord Tumult he may attack,” he said. “Remind him of the tactics we set forth in our last council of war.” The messenger departed.

“Cornets!” the emperor shouted. “Sound the call to battle!”

Five hundred trumpeters raised brass horns to their lips and blew the age-old sequence of notes. A concerted shout went up from the Great Horde.

Ahead, in the advance guard, a corps of archers rode out from Havoc Tumult’s ranks. Once within bowshot of the bakali circles, they dismounted, braced their bows, and commenced bombarding the lizard-men. A concerted hiss rose from the bakali, and as one they raised their shields skyward to ward off the lethal rain of arrows.

Tumult sent forward two hordes, the Bulls of Ergoth on the right and the Silver Skulls on the left. They formed into narrow columns just four riders wide and trotted into the gaps between the bakali defensive circles. As expected, the lizard-men on either side of the advancing Ergothians lowered their shields to close in. When they did, more dense flights of arrows rained on them, felling many. Up went the shields again, and the bakali awkwardly tried to attack the horsemen while still protecting themselves from the arrows.

“Spearmen!” Tumult shouted.

The Red Thunder Horde had been armed with long spears in place of their traditional sabers. At the marshal’s command, they charged forward, spears leveled at the bakali trying to crush the Bulls of Ergoth. A terrible chorus of screams arose when the two forces collided. Bakali shields and axes were no match for iron-tipped spears, and the first two ranks went down like wheat before the scythe.

At that moment, something happened that had never happened: the bakali formation broke. The southern side of the circle, inundated by spearmen, disintegrated.

Shouting their emperor’s name, the Red Thunders galloped into the open field and fell upon the bakali circle from behind. The Silver Skulls and Bulls attacked from either side. In short order the enemy was annihilated.

Word of this success reached the emperor’s entourage and cheers erupted. Ackal V seemed unimpressed.

“One company destroyed,” he said coldly. “Now kill the rest!”

On the right, Lord Janar’s Riders crossed a shallow stream and climbed the opposite bank. A hidden ditch tripped the leading horses. Their riders were thrown onto a hedge of sharpened stakes. Janar held up his own horse by sheer strength and pushed through the obstacle, advancing more warily now. The bakali fortress was no more than half a league ahead of him.

Company after company of armed lizard-men poured down the ramps leading to the earthwork structure. Sunlight and humidity gave their green hides an iridescent sheen. Even at this distance their pungent smell seared the nostrils of men and horses alike. The animals rolled their eyes and champed their teeth. Warriors cursed, hawked, and spat.

Once the remainder of Janar’s force was through the ditch and stakes, he cried, “No quarter!” In companies of two hundred, his men charged.

Men and lizards met halfway between the ditch and the fortress. Ordinarily, twenty thousand Riders at full gallop could trample any number of enemy foot soldiers into the dirt, but the bakali set their clawed feet in the dry earth and took the full impact of the Ergothian charge like a cliff facing a crashing sea. Sabers rang off their helmets, their shields, and their thick, scaly skin. In turn their axes and spears wrought much damage among Havoc Tumult’s men. As the front ranks were reduced to bloody wreckage, the following companies charged home.

In time, a raging sea can wear down a stone cliff. So it was with Tumult’s companies. Little by little, they pushed the bakali back. The price was high; blood, both crimson and purplish red, ran thick over the parched soil.

Ackal V, watching from a knoll in the center of the battlefield, had not yet committed his left wing to battle. He was holding them in reserve, ten thousand warriors led by a young Daltigoth warlord named Vanz Hellman. They sat on their horses, motionless as statues, waiting for their emperor to summon them to battle.

Ackal V fed more and more warriors into the battle’s center, shifting his hordes sideways and forward like pieces on a game board. When the bakali formed a tough defensive position, archers and spearmen scourged them until saber-wielding Riders could break them.

Against fierce resistance, the Ergothian center slowly advanced. The casualties were appalling, especially among the sword-armed hordes. They had to close in to fight, and the lizard-men exacted a terrible toll.

The center pulled abreast of Janar’s Riders, then ground ahead. The bakali stronghold was closer now. Built of logs and mud, it resembled a great hornet’s nest fallen to the ground. The fetid, telltale reptilian odor wafted strongly from open holes in its sides. The smell was strong enough to reach the emperor, overcoming the odor of horses, sweating men, and spilled blood.

“Lordjanar falters,” said one of the emperor’s aides, pointing. “The enemy has him stopped!”

Janar had found himself facing a solid wall of green, scaly skin and bronze armor. Bakali continued to spill from the mound in great numbers, filling in the ranks ahead of him until his way was blocked completely. Many were only half-equipped, gripping a sword or axe and wearing the usual ring-mail coat, but lacking shield or helmet. Although strangely uniform in height, the lizard-men varied in appearance. Some had yellow horn ridges on brow and upper lip, and large, domed heads covered by small green scales. Others, lacking brow ridges, had smaller craniums sheathed in iridescent, pale green skin. They stood shoulder to shoulder, horned beaks gnashing, hacking away.

Janar was wounded but still fighting when a message arrived from Ackal V: Press the enemy harder. Voice cracking from the strain, the warlord urged his men to even greater efforts. He knew the consequences of failure.

A shrill screeching sound filled the air. It came from the summit of the bakali fortress and echoed eerily from the dark tunnel mouths. Hearing it, the lizard-men engaged with the Ergothian center ceased fighting and drew back. Before the surprised Ergothians could pursue, a new terror appeared.

Holes opened up in the ground amidst the ranks of Ackal’s hordes. Lids of packed earth, mud, and twigs exploded upward, revealing the entrances to several large tunnels. Armed bakali poured out of these holes. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of fresh enemy soldiers appeared in the midst of the Ergothian center.

Horses reared, throwing Riders to the ground. Ackal V, his son, and his personal retinue were inundated by furious bakali.

The emperor drew his saber and cleaved the skull of an axe-waving foe. As he fended off billhooks and poleaxes, his war-horse lashed out fore and aft with massive iron-shod hooves. Dalar could not hold on and shrieked in terror. Ackal V hacked off the clawed hands grabbing for his son, grasped the neck of the boy’s hacketon and lifted him onto Sirrion’s back.

A bakali thrust a long spear at Dalar, now seated in front of his father. Ackal V lopped off the spearhead, but the wooden shaft caught the emperor in the throat. Choking and furious, he put the point of his saber through the lizard-man’s eye. Blood sprayed over the ashen-faced prince. His father cursed and shoved the dead bakali off his blade with the toe of his boot. Warlords in his retinue finally cut their way through the throng of lizard-men, surrounded their liege, and fended off further attacks.

All organization was lost as more bakali poured out of the hidden tunnels. Ackal’s well-planned attack degenerated into a vicious melee.

“Your Majesty!” cried his cousin, Hyduran Dermount. “Summon the reserve! Send for Lord Hellman now!”

In answer Ackal V struck the gray-bearded warlord on the jaw with the hilt of his saber. Hyduran fell backward off his horse.

“No man gives me orders!” Ackal V roared. “We came here to kill bakali. So kill them!”

Several warlords suggested he and the crown prince should remove to safety, but Ackal V refused. “Better to die in battle than yield to these lizards!” he told them.

Six hundred paces away, Lord Janar likewise was battling for his life.

The blond warlord, who’d been a shilder with Tol at Juramona twenty-five years before, weighed sixteen stone and was known for his robust constitution. Four times wounded, including a deep stab in the thigh, he still sat tall in the saddle and bellowed encouragement to his men. When he noticed that the outpouring of bakali from the stronghold had thinned, Janar called for the rearmost horde in his formation, the Thorngoth Sabers, to ride wide around the bakali line. Under cover of the heavy dust clouds hanging in the air, the Sabers pulled out of line.

That order was Janar’s last. An thrown axe connected solidly with his forehead. He swayed in the saddle, and fell. Unconscious by the time he hit the blood-soaked ground, he was hacked to pieces by five bakali who muscled through the press of horsemen to reach him. They in turn were slain by vengeful Riders.

The Thorngoth Sabers found the edge of the bakali phalanx and rode wide around it. Hooting and screeching, the lizard-men turned to meet the new threat. The lead Riders steered around their slower, clumsier foe. Agitated, the creatures thinned their line further in an attempt to contain the Ergothians. Their line was four ranks deep, then three. When it thinned to only two bakali deep, the Sabers wheeled in unison and charged.

For one brief, gory moment the bakali line held. Then it shattered. Bakali, minus limbs or heads, flew aside as the Sabers burst through into the open. Leading the charge was young Estan Tremond, son of the governor of Thorngoth. Estan wore his golden hair long, like his father, and it flew behind him as rode hard for the ramp leading into the fortress.

The pressure on Janar’s hordes slackened. A shout went up. The Ergothians had flanked the bakali line. They were nearly to the mound. For the first time the lizard-men wavered.

Moments later, the same hesitation struck the bakali fighting among the Ergothian center. Their usual cold-blooded prowess faltered. Anxious looks were cast back at their threatened fortress.

The emperor thrust a clenched fist into the air. “Now is the time!” he declared. “Send word to Lord Vanz to bring his men forward. He will strike the enemy on our left, as we contain them here!”

Six couriers carried the message, to ensure it would reach its intended recipient. Only two made it through the confusion and carnage. The first courier found Lord Vanz sitting on horseback in the shade of an alder tree.

Only twenty, Vanz Hellman was already an imposing figure. A descendant of northern seafarers, he was dark-skinned and very tall. When his hair had begun to thin two years earlier, he shaved his head and kept it so. He wore no mail beneath his cuirass, so his bare arms, impressively muscled, showed clearly under his turned-back mantle.

The courier galloped up to him, gasping out his message: “My lord! His Majesty commands you to advance!”

“Thank you,” Hellman replied. His voice was low and very deep. He remained motionless on his white horse, giving no orders.

As the puzzled courier prepared to repeat his message, the second messenger arrived, face bloody, right arm hanging limply at his side. He relayed the emperor’s order and received the same calm acknowledgment.

Lord Vanz called for a draft of wine.

More than a league away, the Thorngoth Sabers gained the foot of the enemy’s ramp. The thick walls of the bakali mound were heavily plastered with mud and leaves. The ramp spiraled upward, growing narrower as it rose. Scores of round openings dotted the walls next to the ramp. None were defended.

The Sabers sensed a trap, but urged their horses onto the ramp anyway. When they tried to turn the animals toward the first of the yawning holes, the horses balked. Ergothian war mounts did not shy from the clash of iron or the smell of human blood, but none could be made to push through the vile, throat-clogging odor emanating from the entrance to the bakali stronghold. Their riders were forced to dismount and proceed on foot, sabers drawn.

Within was a winding gallery fitfully lit by the streams of sunlight coming through the entry holes in the walls. As more Riders arrived, they followed their comrades inside, leaving the lowest-ranking among them outside to guard the horses.

There were only two choices, head up or down. As the stronghold was broader at the base than the summit, it made sense to seek the enemy below. Armor jangling, Captain Tremond and his men descended the curved gallery. The interior ramp was wide enough for them to walk five abreast.

A single guard appeared, wielding an axe in each clawed fist. He held them off for some time, skillfully dodging saber thrusts and whirling his twin blades with such force that a single hit severed heads or limbs. They finally overwhelmed him by sheer weight of numbers. After severing his hissing, spitting head from his torso, they continued downward.

The evil stench grew stronger as they descended. So did the enervating heat and humidity. Some warriors, veterans of many battles, became so nauseated they collapsed. Comrades with stronger stomachs kept going.

The curving gallery ended in an open chamber. Pine and cedar knots burned fitfully in the gloom, casting just enough smoky light to reveal the room’s vastness. It was forty or fifty paces across, its domed ceiling supported by trees ripped from the ground and installed with their branches and bark still on. The chamber was lined from wall to wall with thousands of oblong yellow-gray objects, each about the size of a small wine cask.

Tremond poked the nearest of the objects with his sword. The leathery skin yielded. Instantly he realized what they had found.

“Corij preserve us!” he breathed. “It’s a hatchery!”

The bakali eggs were layered four or five deep. There were easily a hundred thousand of them in this single room. They accounted for the terrible smell, as well as the heat and drenching humidity.

An Ergothian slashed the nearest egg. Its pliant shell split and thick green fluid gushed out, as did an amorphous-looking dark mass – an immature bakali. Several soldiers gagged at the sight, but most, following their comrade’s example, began slashing at the eggs. Soon the soldiers were ankle-deep in yellow-green slime.

Tremond halted his men’s frenzied retribution. At this rate they would drown before a thousand eggs were destroyed. Something stronger was needed.

Torches burned in the curving gallery behind them, but the eggs were soft and moist, and the air heavy with damp. It would be impossible to get a blaze going without copious amounts of oil or some other fuel.

“The trees!”

The cry had come from a warrior who carried one of the axes taken from the bakali guard. He stepped out onto the uneven surface of the egg trove and picked his way toward the center of the chamber. There, he drew back the iron axe and began to hack at a tree trunk. Wood chips flew.

Chest working to take in the humid, harsh air, Captain Tremond thought briefly of home, of the fresh breezes that blew off the bay in the mornings. Then he shouted, “Everyone! Cut down those posts! All of them! Right now!”

A soldier with gray in his beard caught his young captain’s arm. “You know what will happen when we cut through those supports, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Tremond said evenly, “we’ll save the empire.”

*

The imperial reserve shifted restlessly, ten thousand warriors on ten thousand horses waiting for their commander to obey the emperor’s order to advance. So far Vanz Hellman had drunk a cup of wine, watched the injured courier carried away, talked idly with his officers, and removed his mantle in the heat of the day.

After his mantle was carefully stowed in a saddle bag, Hellman sat up straight and wrapped the reins around his hands.

“The hordes will advance by columns, to the left,” he said quietly.

Heralds relayed the order as trumpets blared. At a trot, the left wing of the imperial army moved up on the west side of the bakali position. The leading elements of Hellman’s hordes found numerous concealed traps – pits, ditches, deadfalls of huge logs. Each was marked and circumvented. Had the hordes galloped straight ahead, they would have suffered grievously from the traps.

“My lord, how did you know the obstacles were there?” asked Hellman’s second-in-command.

“Because I would have put them there, if I were a cunning lizard.”

Their approach was so deliberate and calm they surprised a phalanx of bakali formed behind a screen of trees. The lizard-men were standing in neatly ordered rows, axes and billhooks resting on their shoulders. Hellman’s Riders appeared beside them as if by magic. Reptilian faces were not expressive by human standards, but the bakali’s astonishment was plain.

Vanz Hellman’s powerful voice burst forth. “Give them iron!”

The Ergothians sabered hundreds of the enemy before they could shift formation and raise their shields. Lord Hellman, in the front rank, put down a bakali with every stroke. Because of his unusual height, he wielded a specially-made saber, its blade a span longer than any other sword on the battlefield.

Although surprised, the bakali did not break. They fought, isolated into bands of six, eight, or ten, until all were slain.

None attempted to surrender. The Ergothians were not taking prisoners anyway.

Hellman’s hordes cut their way to within sight of Ackal V’s position in the center of the battle. One of the emperor’s aides pointed out the towering ebon warrior to the emperor.

Ackal V, still clutching his son to his chest, wheeled his horse about. “About bloody time! Did he come by way of Ropunt Forest?”

The emperor’s ire could not dilute Hellman’s accomplishment. His warriors, fresh and eager for battle, were cleaving the enemy in twain. Ackal V, breathing hard, allowed his bloody sword to hang idle from his hand for the first time in ages.

A tremendous crack split the air. Heads whipped around, wondering if the sound heralded some new bakali trick. Shouts went up from the warriors fighting around the emperor, and thousands of blades, formerly engaged in killing, rose skyward, pointing at the bakali stronghold.

The great earthen mound was collapsing. Its roughly conical peak dropped several paces. Black dust spurted from the open tunnel mouths along its sides. From the embattled lizard-men came a hair-raising, ululating cry, a sound not of anger or bloodlust, but of wrenching despair.

The walls of the mound split apart and fell inward. The pinnacle, which had once reared so high, plummeted into the center of the stronghold. With a prolonged roar, the entire structure gave way, hurling broken logs and dried mud for hundreds of paces all around.

Chapter 18

A KNOWING CHILD

The sun was setting on a sweltering day. It dipped behind the smooth walls of Caergoth, lending to the cool white stone the sheen of old gold. Humid and heavy, the day had passed quietly. The Juramona Militia and the five hundred Riders acting as cavalry escort guarded the treasure and kept out of sight.

Tylocost remained on the hilltop for most of the day, his face shaded by the wide brim of his gardener’s hat. He did not speak. Now and then he plucked a stem of grass and chewed it thoughtfully.

On the other side of the hill, Zala and Casberry completed preparations for their foray into the city. The forty kender chosen by the queen had left to enter the city in whatever way they could. At the appointed time they would join up at the prison cages in the center of Caergoth. In spite of his urgent pleas to be taken into Caergoth, Helbin had never shown up. He likely had developed cold feet, Zala thought. She was glad. That was one less worry on what would probably be a dangerous night.

Zala, with her glean, could enter the city by the gate. Casberry declared herself too old to climb high walls or wriggle through drain pipes. She wanted to accompany the half-elf, and pondered how she could accomplish this since the glean covered only Zala herself.

Her solution to the problem caused Zala, in spite of her nervous excitement, to break out in laughter.

Casberry dispatched Front and Back, her sedan chair bearers, to find her a wheelbarrow. While the men went off to search the treasure trove for such a thing, the queen and the half-elf put together their disguises.

Zala was to be a peasant woman. The queen happily rooted through the numerous chests of her “royal luggage” to find an appropriate dress for her. A lady’s gown of green velvet was just Zala’s size, but much too fine. It would draw attention, and they certainly didn’t want that.

The dress the kender queen finally produced was a patched and well-worn homespun garment. Zala pulled it on and put her arms into the long sleeves. She squirmed a bit, trying to accustom herself to the garment’s unfamiliar feel. Its full skirt covered her legs and the trousers she had flatly refused to remove, and transformed her into frumpy shapelessness. Her hair had grown in the weeks since she’d left Caergoth, but she tied a grimy kerchief over her head to make certain her ears remained covered.

Casberry stripped to her white linen smallclothes, carefully folding each piece of her flamboyant attire and stowing it in her sedan chair. In moments, she completed her own transformation, and Zala was left to stare at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

The kender was clad in a dirty green dress. Around its neck and hem were the remnants of embroidered flowers and bumblebees. A matching bonnet covered her head and cast her face into deep shadow. In one hand, she held the final piece of her disguise – a decrepit cloth doll. Casberry, who must have been at least a hundred years old, was dressed as a human child.

She grinned widely, showing many ancient yellow teeth. “I’m your darling baby!” she declared.

Zala began to laugh. Casberry joined in, her high-pitched mirth sounding like a cat yowling in pain.

Front and Back returned at last with a two-wheeled pushcart. Zala and Casberry put their weapons in and covered them with blankets, then Casberry climbed in.

The sun was nearly gone; only an orange sliver remained above the western hills. Zala wanted to tell Tylocost they were leaving, but the elf was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s sulking,” said Casberry, arranging herself in the pushcart. She cocked a sly look up at Zala and added, “He wants something he can’t get.”

Zala frowned, but before she could say anything, Casberry began issuing orders to Front and Back. They would tell Tylocost of the rescue party’s departure.

On the way to the city, Casberry regaled Zala with ribald stories about her travels through the lands beyond the empire. Hearing these, Zala decided the kender queen was an unscrupulous old wench, but shrewd, brave, and without a doubt never, ever dull.

The paved road was empty when Zala wheeled the creaky barrow onto it. Few travelers dared move after sunset, fearing the wild animals and even wilder raiders who prowled by night. The Dermount Gate bulked large in front of them, blazing torches marking the entrance and the soldiers guarding it.

A figure appeared, instantly and without warning, on the grassy verge just beside Zala. She jumped in shock, her hand reaching for the sword she no longer wore.

It was Helbin, sweeping back the folds of the loose, dark cape that covered him from head to toes. He seemed to appear out of thin air.

“How’d you do that, Red Robe?” Casberry piped.

In reply, he drew the front of the cape up around his eyes. When the motion of the moving cloth subsided, he all but vanished. If Zala looked very closely, she could see the pale oval of his forehead.

“A cloak of invisibility, eh?” said Casberry, sitting up in the barrow. “I could’ve used one of those in Silvanost, a few years back. With garb like that, why do you need us to get you in?”

Helbin folded the cape’s edges back and stood revealed again. “It’s not a cloak of invisibility. Such garments are written of, but they’re fiendishly hard to come across. This is a lesser artifact, a Mockingbird Cloak. It mimics the colors around it, hiding the wearer. It works fine as long as you stand still, but movement, especially against a changing background, renders its mimicry useless.”

“Come along,” Zala told him. “If I can pass as a mother, you can be a father.” The queen of Hylo chuckled, but Helbin looked appalled.

Zala hung her head and slowed her footsteps. She didn’t have to feign weariness. Pushing the barrow in the smothering heat was exhausting, and the sweat was streaming down her face.

A score of paces ahead, the soldiers heard the barrow’s squeaking approach. Their desultory talk died. By the time the newcomers entered the torchlight, the guards were standing ready, swords in hand. Their vigilance made Zala sweat even more.

“Kind of late for travelin’,” said a sergeant with brass chevrons on his helmet. “What’s in the wheelbarrow?”

“Only my darling Cassie.”

Warily, the sergeant parted the blankets. The queen of Hylo pretended to be asleep, sucking her thumb and clutching the cloth doll close to her cheek.

The soldier’s eyebrows shot up, and he recoiled as if slapped.

“Sweet Mishas! That’s your child?”

“Spitting image of her father, she is,” Zala said, turning a glowing smile upon Helbin. The wizard shuffled his feet and looked at his toes. Fortunately, beneath his cloak he wore plain attire and not the robe of his Order.

The sergeant motioned a corporal over. This second soldier bent to see Zala’s passenger and guffawed.

“Someone shaved a gnome!”

Indignant, Zala presented her glean. “This night air isn’t good for Cassie. I must get her home.”

Shaking his head over the young mother’s homely offspring, the sergeant noted their entry in his log.

“You can go, once I search the wheelbarrow,” he said, handing the log to another soldier.

Zala’s breath caught. “Search? For what?”

“Contraband. Folks try to smuggle goods into the city every day, to avoid paying the merchants’ tax.”

Zala’s terror did not show on her face, but her mind was racing. If the soldier found the swords hidden in the barrow, she and her party were doomed. Worse, if they looked closely at Casberry, they’d know for certain she was no child. The three of them would end up with the prisoners they had come to liberate.

The sergeant had only begun to feel among the blankets when he suddenly stepped back, a look of disgust on his ruddy face. He fanned his nose with one hand.

Helbin made a gagging sound, but Zala cooed loudly, “Poor Cassie! Do you need changing?”

“She needs burying!” the corporal replied catching a whiff.

The sergeant gestured vigorously for them to pass. “Go! Pass on, at once!”

Once in the city, Zala wheeled the barrow quickly into a dark alley and whisked away the blanket. Casberry sat up, tugging the bonnet from her head.

“Faw, what did you do?” Zala hissed, as Helbin continued to make retching noises.

“Kender learn many things, wandering the world. For example, a sprig of frogbone root, snapped open, gives off a remarkable stench.” She held up a dry bit of broken twig.

“Throw it away!” Helbin gasped, waving a hand desperately. The queen flicked the offensive root into the gutter.

They shucked their disguises and retrieved their weapons from the barrow. Zala’s cotton undershirt was thin and sleeveless, which felt good after the sweaty confinement of her long dress.

Helbin would have left them at this point, but Zala pulled him up short. He insisted he must go and find other Red Robes.

“No,” she said flatly. “You’ll stay with us until the prisoners are freed.”

Away from the well-patrolled streets just inside the city wall, Caergoth was busy. Refugees and leaderless soldiers prowled the wide lanes seeking diversion. As there weren’t enough taverns to accommodate the flood of newcomers, enterprising residents had set up pushcarts and peddled bread rolls, cold meat pies, and a variety of cheap drinks: raw young wine, cloyingly sweet mead, and fizzy beer. In some of the lesser city squares, where the press was especially thick, Casberry mourned the loss of her frogbone. Its odor would have cleared a path through the throng in no time. Helbin shuddered at the memory of the loathsome stench.

For her part, Zala paid close attention to the people around them. The general mood was one of disgruntlement. The refugees had been driven away from their farms, forges, and shops into a city that had no use for them. They wasted their days drinking, gambling, and fighting. Theft was common, as was Governor Lord Wornoth’s harsh justice. For a first offense, a thief lost a finger. Second offenders lost a hand. Anyone caught a third time lost his head. Many heads decorated the high wall of the citadel.

Soldiers in the crowd were bitter. As Riders of the Great Horde, they were used to sweeping all enemies before them. Now, having been defeated by a swarm of barbarian nomads, they were reduced to cowering inside stone walls. It was no life for a warrior. More than a few times Zala heard Wornoth cursed as a miserable coward. The emperor in far-off Daltigoth had forgotten his loyal hordes, so they rotted in the peasant-choked streets of Caergoth.

Zala and Casberry kept Helbin between them, to be certain the wizard wouldn’t be tempted to use his Mockingbird Cloak to evade them. Casberry sampled a pocket or two on the way, but found the pickings uninteresting. The refugees were as poor as they complained they were.

Luin’s Field was lit by clusters of torches, set around the vast cage complex in its center. Pairs of guards on foot stood watch by each set of torches, while mounted warriors circled the fence. The smaller cage by the temple of Corij, which held the condemned, was better illuminated. In addition to the torches, bonfires burned at each corner. Zala doubted anyone in the cage could sleep with the glare of light and constant noise.

She wondered how they were to get close to the prisoners. Helbin offered to go, but the half-elf quickly vetoed that idea.

“You don’t know my father, or the Dom-shu,” she pointed out.

“I know Miya, wife of Lord Tolandruth.”

An argument threatened, but Casberry put an end to it by giving Zala a shove.

“Get under that cloak, girl, and both of you go!” she hissed, then turned away, melting into the shadows beyond the firelight.

Helbin was slightly taller, so Zala stood in front of him while he drew the Mockingbird Cloak around them. The intimacy inside the cape would have been disturbing had she been sharing it with Tylocost or Lord Tolandruth, but Helbin radiated nothing but indifference.

“Walk very slowly,” he whispered. “The cloth must have time to adapt to its surroundings.”

At a snail’s pace they moved toward the condemned cage. The ensorcelled fabric gradually took on the bloody orange hue of the bonfires. Peeking through the open slit in the front of the cape, Zala saw the dark outlines of sleeping prisoners inside the pen, which smelled worse than she remembered.

When they were near enough, she parted the cloak. As loudly as she dared, Zala called her father’s name.

“Shut up,” said a voice from the mass of unmoving captives.

“I must find Kaeph the Scrivener!”

“He’s here. Keep talking so loudly, and you’ll be in here with him.”

Helbin whispered, “Is that Miya?”

One of the shapeless mounds stirred. It was indeed Miya. Moving slowly, as though languid with sleep, she sat up. Although she acted sleepy, her voice was clear and her ears sharp.

“There are two of you,” she said.

“Yes. We’re here to get you out.”

“Just two of you?”

“No, there are forty kender here, ready to help.”

Miya stiffened. “Forty kender? May the gods have mercy.”

She leaned forward and prodded the figure in front of her. He snorted and woke, grumbling noisily. Miya clapped a hand over his mouth, and hissed, “Quiet, all! Guards!”

A pair of foot soldiers approached. Their hobnailed boots struck in unison as they marched along the length of the cage. Zala drew the edges of the cloak together again. She and Helbin stood motionless.

“… out of beef, they said,” one guard was saying. “So I put my knife to the innkeeper’s throat and told him if he didn’t have beef, he could give us his daughter!” His partner joined him in rough laughter.

The men’s voices drew closer. Zala held her breath and wondered if they would bump right into her.

As the men passed, one brushed lightly against Helbin’s back.

“What was that?” he asked, stopping abruptly.

“What was what?” said his comrade.

“Something touched me.”

Zala flexed her fingers around the grip of her short sword. At close range, she could take both men down, if they weren’t wearing heavy armor.

“There’s nothing here but stinking prisoners. Come on. We’re off duty.”

In spite of his comrade’s urging, the first guard drew his saber and swept the air around him. The flat of the blade struck Helbin in the back. The wizard stumbled forward, throwing Zala against the bars of the cage and out of the cloak’s protection. Instantly she was revealed, and out came her sword.

Both guards shouted, tearing the cloak from Helbin’s back. More soldiers came running in response to their yells.

“So much for being rescued,” said Miya sharply.

“Wait,” Zala hissed. “We’re not done yet.”

The Ergothians quickly ringed the wizard and huntress in a wall of swords and halberds. An officer on horseback demanded Zala lay down her weapon. Instead, she cut the air with her blade. The soldiers started to close in.

Miya and the Dom-shu rushed toward the bars, shouting. The sudden movement distracted the guards. Zala thrust the pommel of her sword through the bars to Miya. “Free yourselves!” she said. “Run, wizard!”

Helbin tried. He got about ten steps before soldiers tackled him, knocking him down on the grimy pavement. Zala proved more elusive. When she felt fingers snag the back of her undershirt, she spun, gripped her pursuer’s arm, and used his own momentum to send him flying. Then she took off in a new direction.

The houses along the eastern side of Luin’s Field had been turned into barracks for hundreds of soldiers. As Zala raced down the street, she heard shouting from within the barracks, followed by a furious pounding. Sparing a glance in that direction, she saw that every door was blocked with timbers, piles of masonry, casks, or barrels. Further on, she passed a solitary figure leaning against the columns of one of the fine houses now home to part of Caergoth’s garrison.

Queen Casberry. She and her kender troop had been busy. They had blocked the barracks’ doors.

The commotion near the prisoners’ cages had become an uproar. Zala’s sword had been passed back among the ragged Dom-shu and vanished. The guards who hadn’t chased Zala demanded it back. Miya’s reply was brief but pungent.

The sergeant of the guard summoned a squad of archers. Soon, ten bows were leveled at the foresters, standing shoulder to shoulder just inside the bars. Other prisoners scampered out of the line of fire.

“Give up the blade!” shouted the sergeant..

“Come and take it, grasslander!” Voyarunta bellowed back.

The Ergothian raised his hand. Ten bowstrings creaked as they were drawn back.

“Will you murder us all?” said Miya. “I am the wife of Lord Tolandruth!”

The archers glanced at their commander. “You are all condemned prisoners of the empire!” said the sergeant. “Yield the blade or die!”

Uncle Corpse pushed his daughter behind him. “Enough talk! Dom-shu, time to go!”

The tribesmen rushed the bars, smashing into them with all their weight. Bows twanged, and arrows flashed in a short flight to meet the oncoming wall of flesh.

*

Governor Lord Wornoth’s factotum was a plump, fussy man named Tello. He arrived at his master’s bedchamber to find the doors already closed. Squaring his shoulders, Tello lifted his baton of office and rapped on the portal. A loud voice beyond the door yelled at him to enter. He did so, and the servant behind him scurried in to light the room’s lamps.

Wornoth sat up in bed. Although he was not an old man, the strain of ruling the second city of the empire in Ackal V’s name showed in his hollow eyes, sallow complexion, and thinning brown hair. Tello pretended not to notice the young woman lying next to Lord Wornoth, her face buried in the bedclothes. She was not, he knew, one of the governor’s wives.

“Tello, if the bakali aren’t at the gates, I’ll have you flogged for this interruption!”

“My gracious lord,” Tello said, putting his soft hands together and bowing. “The prisoners in Luin’s Field are rioting!”

“Sweet Mishas, you woke me to tell me that? Tell the guards to quell any disturbance. When they’re done, tell the captain to give you forty lashes!”

Tello bowed again in acknowledgment of his master’s judgment, but added, “There is more, Lord Governor. We have captured one of those who was trying to free the prisoners. It’s the Red Robe Helbin, my lord.”

Wornoth’s annoyance vanished. “Helbin! Where is he?”

“In your audience hall, my lord, under heavy guard.”

The governor slid out of bed. A lackey hurried forward to hold his robe. As Wornoth tied the sash around his waist, he told Tello to rouse the garrison.

“Have them clear the streets,” he commanded. “Anyone caught helping the prisoners escape is to be killed on sight. I will see Master Helbin at once.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Factotum and servants departed, and Wornoth’s bedmate exited through a door concealed in one of the room’s walls. Wornoth donned his rings of office and hung the heavy governor’s medallion around his neck. The golden emblem of the House of Ackal felt cold against his skin.

So, the Red Robe deserter had been caught. The emperor’s pleasure at this news would be great – as would his gratitude.

He went to the small gong by his bed, intending to summon a scribe to take down an immediate dispatch, but he paused. Perhaps it would be better to find out exactly what Helbin knew first. Great discretion had to be exercised in dealing with any important person from Daltigoth, especially Ackal V. Although the emperor had issued a death warrant for the wayward wizard, it was entirely possible Helbin was acting on the emperor’s behalf, and the warrant was only a ruse to confuse Ackal V’s enemies.

Wornoth rubbed his forehead. Countless possibilities chased themselves around in his brain. He could feel a major headache beginning, just behind his eyes.

*

Dirty and exhausted, Tol and a twenty-man escort rode into Tylocost’s dark, fireless camp. They had covered the distance between the Isle of Elms and Caergoth in less than two days. The Army of the East, moving more slowly, was strung out behind them. Its full strength would not arrive for another day, possibly two.

The Juramona Militia cheered Tol’s arrival. The noise brought Tylocost out of his tent, and he bowed to his captor-commander.

Drink was brought. Tol gulped cider as Tylocost apprised him of the discovery of the Dom-shu prisoners and Zala’s father.

The wooden cup fell from Tol’s gloved hand. “Miya is here? And Chief Voyarunta?”

“So I am told. Is Kiya well? I’m surprised she isn’t with you.”

Tol said only that Kiya was well and was coming later with Egrin and the main body of the army. In truth, she had been profoundly affected by her experience at the Isle of Elms. Tol had told her to remain behind and watch out for Egrin, and she hadn’t objected. Oddly, she seemed sad, as though the slain nomads were her own kin and not the enemy.

Tylocost had little faith the kender could prevail against an entire city garrison, but Tol didn’t share these sentiments. The kender, he said, could be a valuable asset to Zala – if the erratic little folk remembered they were on a rescue mission and not in Caergoth to “find” interesting things.

Tol glanced at the eastern sky. It was well past midnight, but daybreak was still marks away. Nevertheless, he made his next decision quickly.

“Muster your troops, General. We go to Caergoth.”

“My lord? You intend to force an entry with only five hundred Riders and a few thousand foot soldiers?”

Tol smiled grimly. “I don’t plan to force anything,” he said. “The governor will invite us in.”

Chapter 19

WHIRLWIND HARVEST

The Caergoth archers loosed a single volley into the rebellious prisoners. Three of the Dom-shu went down, and Chief Voyarunta received an arrow in the upper thigh. Grunting, he broke off the fletched end, pushed the shaft on through, and yanked it free of the hard flesh of his leg. The Dom-shu, with other prisoners, formed a human ladder pushing against the fence. Miya and a dozen captives climbed the tangle of limbs to the top of the cage. Their swift progress unnerved the archers, who shifted their aim to pick off the prisoners as they reached the top of the spiked fence. They never let fly the second volley. A barrage of brickbats and paving stones struck them, knocking some flat and spoiling the aim of the rest.

The sergeant of the guard whirled to see who dared interfere with his men. On the steps of the Temple of Corij were more than a dozen short figures. He took them for children until several in front bent over and bared their bottoms. All heckled the soldiers in loud, high-pitched tones.

“Kender!” the sergeant bellowed. “You men there! Get those stinking —!”

A heavy weight landed on his back, driving him face-first to the pavement. It was Miya. She stepped off the unconscious man and said mockingly. “Thank you for breaking my fall!”

Although Chief Voyarunta’s leg was bleeding, he had taken his place among his men at the base of the human ladder. When he saw his daughter outside, he shouted for Zala’s short sword and tossed it to her through the bent bars. She caught it deftly and hurried to free him and the rest.

Luin’s Field was in full uproar. Buoyed by the success of the Dom-shu, the rest of the captives were storming the fence. Guards rushed from one point of crisis to another. Prisoners threw rags and blankets over the spikes along the top of the barrier, climbed over, and dropped to the ground. Kender darted through the confusion, tripping soldiers, or pelting them with rocks. Mounted warriors tried to charge the escapees, but instead found themselves fighting to control their horses as kender menaced the animals with stolen torches. No horse would charge into fire. The riders were set upon by throngs of prisoners, dragged from their mounts, and stripped of arms.

The sole entrance to the condemned prisoners’ cage was on the opposite side from the Temple of Corij. Miya fought her way to it through the mob. It was secured by a crossbar as wide as Miya’s waist, and kept in place by a thick black chain. No one had dared climb the gate. It was studded on both sides with sword-sharp bronze barbs.

Miya regarded the gate helplessly. The short, thin sword in her hand was of no use against either the massive crossbar or the chain.

“Need help, lady?” said someone, tapping her elbow.

She turned. Four soot-stained kender stood behind her. The one who’d spoken added, “I’m Curly Windseed, at yer service, and this is Cuss, Juniper, and Fancy.”

“Get this gate open, quick!” she told them. The prisoners had to be freed before the city garrison arrived.

“Sure. Fancy, you got that bar?”

The tallest of the kender pulled a thick metal rod from his collar. It was a straight iron prybar, and evidently had seen a great deal of use. Fancy put one end in the chain and proceeded to wind the bar around and around, binding the chain in the process.

“Lend a hand, big lady,” said the smallest kender, the one called Cuss.

With Miya and the kender pulling and straining for all they were worth, the chain finally snapped. Prisoners rushed forward, and the heavy crossbar was thrown aside.

Before Miya could move, a wall of escapees surged against the gate, swinging it open and almost knocking her fiat. She held onto a gatepost while the torrent flowed past. Of the helpful quartet of kender, there was no sign.

Once the flow of prisoners thinned, Miya saw Zala run into the open pen, calling her father’s name.

Miya yelled, “Your father’s in the shanty. He was too sick to stay out in the open!”

Together they raced across the rapidly emptying compound. Zala’s father lay under a makeshift lean-to. A gray stubble covered his face. His eyes were rheumy and dull.

“Papa!” Zala said, grasping him by the shoulders. “Papa, I’m here. You’re safe!”

“Hurudithya,” the old man whispered. “I knew you’d come!”

Miya looked a question at her, and Zala shook her head. “I was named after my mother,” she explained. “I don’t use often.”

The clatter of iron-shod hooves warned them the city garrison was on its way. Supporting Kaeph between them, Zala and Miya crossed the empty prison compound and quickly moved out the gate.

The great square of Luin’s Field was almost empty. The freed prisoners had not lingered, and neither had the kender. Miya helped Zala get her father to the steps of the Temple of Corij. Leaving them there, the Dom-shu woman raced back to the prison cage to look for her own wounded father. However, save for a few unconscious guards and slain prisoners, the cage was empty.

Miya called for her father, but her cries were lost in the growing thunder of approaching horses. She ran back to the Temple of Corij.

Zala and her father were not where she’d left them.

With a low cry of frustration, Miya dithered on the temple steps. Where was everyone? Where was her father?

A diminutive figure in a brown surcoat came down the steps toward her. His head was covered by a brown hood.

“This way, friend,” he said, holding out a hand. “Enter the sanctuary of Corij.”

Corij, god of war, was served by a priesthood of soldiers and former soldiers. This little person could hardly be one of them. Miya spun him around and tugged back the hood of his vestment.

The Dom-shu found herself staring at a brown, leathery face seamed by hundreds of wrinkles. It was not a visage easily forgotten.

“Queen Casberry!” she exclaimed. Who wasn’t in Caergoth tonight?

“You better lift those big feet!” the old kender said, sprinting nimbly up the steps.

Casberry led Miya through the temple’s open portico. Burning candles lit the dark interior and spread a musky scent. A crowd of people huddled among the thick columns. Among them, Miya was relieved to see, was her father, as well as his warrior escort, the half-elf Zala, and her ailing parent.

A genuine priest of Corij came forward. Although his long beard was gray, he was broad of shoulder and straight-backed.

“I am Almarden, high priest of Corij,” he said. “I will guide you to safety.”

Armed with a hooded lantern, Almarden led the way. The house of Corij was the largest temple in Caergoth. Parts of the complex predated the city itself. Through passages broad and narrow, straight and twisting, the priest never lost his way. The fitful light illuminated shadowy figures lining the passages. These weren’t enemies, but suits of armor belonging to famous, long-dead warriors. It was customary for a family to dedicate a dead warrior’s armor to the god of battle.

Fleetingly, Miya wondered whether Tol would have a suit of armor here someday, or an unmarked grave on the endless plains.

The high priest reached a bronze door and halted. Holding his lantern aloft, he whispered, “Outside is the Street of the Coopers. It runs straight down to the Dermount Gate.”

“Thanks to you, holy one,” Voyarunta said. “You are a true man, even if you are a grasslander!”

Behind the Dom-shu chief, naked blades gleamed. Determined not to be taken without a fight, the escapees had helped themselves to the weapons of the ancient heroes on display.

Almarden raised no objection, saying only, “May Corij and Mishas favor you. Good luck.”

Voyarunta and his warriors moved out first, and the rest of the escapees followed them into the dark street of the barrel-makers. Queen Casberry had shed her priestly garb somewhere along the way. She tossed the high priest a cheery, “Thanks!” as she departed.

Last in line were Miya, Zala, and Kaeph. The old man was moving on his own now. To Miya’s surprise, he and the priest of Corij embraced before parting. Zala, her short sword back in her hand, surveyed the street outside, then waved her father forward.

As Almarden gave Miya a saber, she asked, “Why do this, holy one? We were prisoners of your governor. Why help us escape?”

“The rulers of our land are not always just. When Queen Casberry came to me, my duty was clear. Corij will judge my actions, not Lord Wornoth.”

Almarden watched Kaeph and Zala move slowly away. “Besides, what man could refuse to save his own brother’s life?”

*

“Enough.”

Wornoth, seated in his governor’s chair, frowned. Despite the best efforts of two brawny guards, Helbin still refused to say why he was in Caergoth, or how he had entered the city.

“Why are you here?” he demanded yet again. “Who came with you?”

Helbin lifted his bloody face. One eye was beginning to swell shut, so he peered at his captor through the other.

“I came with the Queen of Hylo!” he said, and no one believed it.

One of the guards raised a meaty hand, but the governor waved him off.

“I have a death warrant for you, wizard, signed by the emperor himself. Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be quick and merciful.”

Helbin made as if to speak again, but a fit of coughing interrupted him. At Wornoth’s direction, the soldiers dragged the wizard to a sitting position.

“Your days are numbered, savage,” Helbin finally rasped. “The greatest warlord of our age is coming fast upon you. I may die, but you will not long outlive me!”

“What are you raving about? What warlord?”

“Tolandruth of Juramona.”

Wornoth snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous! The emperor banished him years ago.”

Helbin’s split lips moved in a ghastly smile. “Mark my words. He is coming.”

The wizard’s certainty, even after such a beating, rocked Wornoth. At his last encounter with Lord Tolandruth, the formidable warlord had threatened to kill him.

He declared, “Tolandruth is a condemned exile, and a traitor. If he dares show his face in Caergoth, his head will decorate the highest tower of the citadel!”

The wizard began to shake. Thinking him broken at last, Wornoth beamed. His toothy smile froze when he realized that Helbin was laughing, not weeping.

Wornoth snapped, “Take him away! Carry out his sentence at once. I’ve no time for his foolish threats!”

The soldiers dragged Helbin to his feet. He realized the time had come for a last, desperate act. He had a single spell remaining, one he’d prepared before leaving Tylocost’s camp. He wasn’t certain its effects were reversible, but trying it was better than death – he hoped.

He pushed a parchment-thin wooden chip out between his teeth. Through all his rough treatment, he had kept the chip hidden beneath his tongue. The sigils on its face were clear and sharp, not eroded by blood or saliva.

Wornoth immediately spotted the chip. Certain it was magical in nature, he shouted for the guards to stop the wizard.

He was too late. Helbin bit down, snapping the chip in two.

In the next instant, the wizard began to writhe as though in terrible agony. As the guards drew back in fear, the ragged silk of his crimson robe shredded and long, black feathers pushed through skin and cloth. Helbin’s sandy hair fell out, revealing a mass of flame-red skin. His head shriveled. Gray eyes darkened and shrank. His swollen, bloody mouth elongated into a hard yellow beak.

In the space of half a dozen heartbeats, man transformed into vulture – a monstrous, black-plumed creature fully as tall as Helbin had been. The vulture spread its wings and uttered a single, sharp screech. The cry was deafening.

Terror-stricken, Wornoth tried to climb over the back of his tall, heavy chair. He shrieked at his men to kill the monster.

The closest soldier tried to bring out his dagger. The vulture’s hooked beak raked a bloody line across the man’s face, from right eye to chin. The soldier threw his hands over his eyes and fell aside, cursing.

The way was open. Talons slipping on the polished marble floor, the huge vulture scrambled away, wings flapping.

The guards in the audience hall had only spears and sabers, no bows. They could not hem in the flailing creature. The vulture reached an open window and leaped onto the wide stone ledge.

Casting one last black-eyed glance over his humped shoulder, the vulture that had been Helbin the Red Robe let out a piercing scream and leaped into the air.

Wornoth rushed to the window, following the vulture’s flight. Dawn was breaking over Caergoth. When the black curl of the vulture’s wings finally vanished, the governor turned his gaze downward. The sight that met his eyes sent an icy shaft of fear through his gut.

An army was mustering on the plain outside the city. A sizable army, it bore before it the standard of Juramona.

*

Hundreds of miles away a pall of dirt and smoke hung high over the collapsed bakali stronghold. Two days had passed since the end of the battle, and still the dark cloud remained.

Few Riders of the Great Horde knew what the great earthen mound contained, but the despair of the lizard-men over its fall was powerful. A great blow had been struck against the invaders.

Even so, the bakali’s withdrawal, though swift, was in good order. Under the cover of roiling clouds of dirt, they had formed into three compact columns. They retreated swiftly northwest, toward Ropunt Forest. Caught off guard by the sudden change of fortune, and utterly exhausted, the imperial army did not try to stop them.

Ackal V had his victory, but it was not the crushing triumph he’d expected. Half his army was dead or wounded. An entire horde, the Thorngoth Sabers, had perished in the collapse of the bakali mound. The battlefield was heaped with the dead and dying of both sides.

A prolonged blast of trumpets had summoned the surviving commanders to attend upon the emperor. Servants spread a gold and scarlet carpet on the blood-soaked ground, and Ackal V’s portable throne was set up. Prince Dalar, looking wan and limp, was delivered to his father by two brawny Riders who had been guarding him. The boy was required to stand at his father’s right hand.

There weren’t many warlords left to answer Ackal V’s summons. Many of those who finally gathered before him were swaying on their feet from exhaustion or wounds. All were streaked with gore, grime, and sweat.

Vanz Hellman was in remarkably good condition. Although his armor bore the marks of many blades, his face and bare arms were unmarred. Ackal V ordered the towering warrior forward, and Hellman went down on one knee before him.

“What is your will, Majesty?”

Even restrained, his voice rolled out like thunder.

“My will is to have your head on a pike! Why didn’t you come immediately, when I ordered you into battle?” Ackal said.

“I did come, Your Majesty. My hordes broke the lizards’ resistance.”

“You delayed responding to my command!”

Dalar flinched at his father’s shout, but knew better than to retreat a single step from his prescribed place.

The kneeling warlord pressed a hand to his heart. His gesture of sincerity seemed somehow mocking.

“As commander of the reserve, sire, I had to judge the best time to strike. I waited until the lizards were deeply committed against Your Majesty’s position, then I attacked.”

“You hoped they’d kill me first!”

“No, sire!” Hellman said instantly. “I acted to insure victory. I am Your Majesty’s most loyal servant.”

Ackal V regarded Hellman through narrowed eyes for a long, heart-pounding moment. It was a ruthless warlord indeed who dared dispute with the Emperor of Ergoth, but Ackal V could not deny that Hellman’s final charge had been perfectly timed. The carnage around them was testimony to that.

Ackal V did the one thing that made even the bravest of his commanders tremble, Vanz Hellman included. He smiled.

“Very well. I am sure of your abiding love for the throne of Ergoth. As a loyal servant of the empire, you will gather what remains of the army and pursue the lizard-men.” The emperor’s tone was almost genial. “Harry them out of our realm. Drive them into the sea, and spare none, do you hear? I want to hear of nothing but mounds of bakali skulls from here to the Seascapes!”

Hellman stood. His demeanor remained calm, but sweat trickled down his smooth, dark face. He vowed he would carry out the emperor’s command.

“See that you do,” Ackal V said. “Your life is pledged against your success.”

Hellman and his retainers withdrew. Other warlords were called forward to give accounts of their losses. The death rate was unusually high – neither the Ergothians nor the bakali had shown mercy to those who fell. When a handful of survivors from the right wing of the army told of the discovery of eggs inside the mound, it became clear why the lizard-men had fought with such tireless abandon.

The emperor commanded the priests and clerics from his entourage to come forward. These learned folk were led by a priestess of Zivilyn named Talatha.

Although the eldest of the group, Talatha was not yet middle-aged. She wore her dark hair tightly confined in a long braid, and her moss-green robe was simple and shapeless.

Ackal V wanted to know why the bakali had fought their way to the heart of the empire to build their nest, when they could have done so anywhere.

Talatha cleared her throat and replied, keeping her eyes lowered, “Great Majesty, I believe they were compelled to do so by their own natures.” She held a hand out, and a lesser priest put a thin scroll in it. “This document is from the time of the Dragon Wars. It speaks of the life cycle of the bakali. After many generations, the lizard folk are driven by instinct to return to the breeding ground of their ancient ancestors.”

The emperor’s brows rose in surprise. “That’s a revelation. Why was I not told this before?”

His words, spoken gently, drained the color from Talatha’s face. Nervously, she fingered her gold medallion of faith.

“The, uh, document is a most obscure one, Your Majesty. No more than a gloss, pasted onto a larger scroll in the temple library, it was discovered only this day, during the battle, as we searched for the meaning of these events.”

Ackal V made no reply. Instead, he called for wine. He did not offer refreshment to anyone else. Talatha and her colleagues remained still, gazes deferentially on the ground. Only after he’d drained his golden goblet twice did Ackal dismiss Talatha. She led her people away in grateful haste.

The emperor addressed his warlords again. “We must make absolutely certain all the bakali eggs were destroyed. I don’t want to have to fight again when the creatures’ progeny hatch out among us!”

The bakali stronghold would be excavated, he decreed, and every egg found inside destroyed. Ackal did not specify who was to undertake this prodigious task, and the commanders began to shift uncomfortably and mutter among themselves. Would the emperor really set his noble warriors to digging, like so many slaves?

Ackal V laughed, a short, harsh sound. Cuffing his son, he said, “See, Dalar, how the mighty lords of Ergoth tremble at the thought of a little labor!” The boy managed a weak smile at his father’s wit.

The warlords were visibly relieved by the emperor’s next orders. All warriors not going with Vanz Hellman were to organize into bands and sweep the countryside. All peasants, farmers, or stray travelers they found would be drafted into work gangs; any who resisted would be put to death. These gangs would dig through the bakali mound.

“One thing more.”

Ackal V sat back, gripping the arms of his throne. “The tradition of my ancestors demands that I, as victor, raise a mountain of our defeated enemies’ heads here on the battlefield.”

He paused to send a cold glare across the assembly, then added slowly, “This task you will conduct yourselves. It is the duty of the Great Horde to offer up the enemy dead to their emperor.”

Not by word or look did the nervous warlords betray their distaste for the gruesome task he had set them.

By sundown, the emperor’s order had been obeyed. Two great pyramids of death rose beside the fallen mound. One was made of bakali heads, the other of decapitated corpses.

*

Valaran stood alone in the palace solarium, before a magnificent wall of firetongue orchids. Bright red in daylight, the stamens of the orchids glowed in the dark like hot coals. Filling a corner of the sunken garden with color, the rare flowers were a pet project of Ackal V’s youngest wife, Lady Halie. Only eighteen years old, Halie was an extraordinary beauty, with thick red-gold hair cascading well past her waist and eyes as violet as the twilight sky. She was the emperor’s current favorite. Valaran knew her husband. He could not be swayed by mere beauty. Halie’s loveliness was coupled with a quiet, obedient disposition – just the sort to find favor with Ackal V.

Valaran had come to the solarium to read. This morning that simple act, which had sustained her soul for as long as she could remember, brought her no peace. She couldn’t concentrate. As daylight brightened the isinglass panels above her, she abandoned the marble bench to walk the path that wound through the garden.

If only Dalar was here! Were she certain of the boy’s safety, she could revel in her daydreams of Ackal V hacked to pieces by lizard-men. Instead, all such thoughts ended the same way: Dalar shrieking in hopeless fear, Dalar set upon by bakali, Dalar lying dead on a distant battlefield …

She smote a clenched fist on the low wall beside the path. She would not give in to mindless fear. She was a woman of reason and intellect, a Pakin. Her husband might be evil, a brutal tyrant, but he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his son. Succession was intensely important to him.

If only her other nightmare could be rationalized away so easily.

White robes flapping in the wind. The old woman screaming, growing smaller and smaller with distance. A heart-stopping impact.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

Valaran flinched at the unexpected interruption. A lady of the court was rushing toward her. Flushed with excitement, her starched headdress askew, the woman dropped a quick curtsey, her slippers skidding on the white marble.

“Majesty! Talatha, priestess of Zivilyn who accompanied His Majesty, has sent word to the College of Wizards,” she panted. “The emperor has achieved a signal victory – the lizard invaders are defeated!”

Valaran said nothing. In fact, she was so pale, so motionless, so long silent, the lady-in-waiting grew concerned.

“Your Majesty?”

“Praise the God of Battle,” Valaran finally said, her voice toneless. “The empire is saved.”

Chapter 20

WEAPON OF CHOICE

Pale predawn found Tol riding slowly down the ranks of the Juramona Militia. Tylocost rode beside him. Egrin and the mounted hordes were on their way, but with Miya at risk inside the city, Tol could not wait.

He directed the men to straighten their line, to hold shields and spears up. It wasn’t going be easy to intimidate the governor of Caergoth with only two thousand foot soldiers and five hundred Riders. Wornoth commanded at least twenty-thousand seasoned troops. Still, knowing the governor for the weakling he was, Tol felt it worth the risk to try to bluff him into releasing his prisoners.

The militia was deployed across the face of a low knoll east of the city. At their backs, scarcely a quarter-league away, flowed the Caer River. Instead of their usual close ranks, the men were positioned in open order, like spots on checkered cloth. Shields were held out on their left and spears to their right, as they tried to take up as much space as possible. From the high walls of Caergoth they might appear as though twice their number. The demi-horde of Riders Tol held in reserve, just behind the knoll.

Tol and Tylocost turned their mounts about and rode back toward the center of the line.

“What if the garrison sorties?” the Silvanesti asked. “We’ll have to hold them off till Egrin arrives.” Tylocost’s disbelief was silent but unmistakable. Tol nodded to some veterans he recognized in the ranks, then said, “What’s the matter? Don’t elves like to gamble?”

“In point of fact, no. We find the human love of hazard inexplicable. It’s an extravagance we prefer to avoid.”

Tol chuckled. As a general, Tylocost was famous for taking enormous risks. At the Battle of the Capes he defeated an Ergothian force eight times larger than his by dividing his army. The Ergothian commander, Lord Lembroth, could not attack one of Tylocost’s divisions without exposing his flank to the other. Lembroth’s nerve failed utterly after the elf repelled attacks on both forces. Lembroth lost his army and his life.

Tol was taking a terrible risk today. The treasure recovered from the nomads lay unguarded in Tylocost’s hidden camp. Egrin, with thirty thousand Riders, plus Hanira’s Tarsans, was at least half a day’s march, perhaps a whole day’s, away. If Wornoth sortied all his hordes, no one in Tol’s small army would live to greet Egrin.

Tol and Tylocost took up positions at the center of the line. The sun had cleared the knoll behind them, its light streaming across Tol’s army and onto the walls of Caergoth. Lookouts on the walls would have that glare in their eyes. So would Riders emerging from the gate on this side of the city. In a situation like this, any advantage was welcome.

Signal flags went up from the towers along the wall. Horns sounded, muted by distance and thick stone walls.

Without further ado, the eastern gate opened and a double line of horsemen emerged. At the same time, a small band of people on foot, drably dressed in brown and gray, rose up from the tall summer grass near the city wall and started running toward Tol’s position.

“Stand ready!” Tol boomed. “Close ranks at my command – and not before!” To the elf: “Can you make out who they are?”

Tylocost stared across the distance, concentrating. Fine lines grooved his forehead and the corners of his close-set eyes.

“Twenty or so kender.”

The kender troop moved across the open field. The horsemen – several hundred Riders of the Great Horde – drew sabers and spurred forward. Their targets were the kender, not Tol and his troops.

The kender kept together until the horsemen were almost upon them. Then, as though in response to some silent signal, the little band scattered, each kender heading in a different direction. As the Riders swerved to chase the various foes, their disciplined line was reduced to confusion.

Tol laughed. Tylocost pushed back the brim of his gardener’s hat and muttered a phrase in his own language.

“I’m beginning to see why you recruited them,” he said. “They’re damned infuriating, aren’t they?”

“Best skirmishers in the world. Fighting a band of kender is like trying to count dandelion seeds in a gale!”

After several embarrassing collisions and much disorder, the Ergothians sorted themselves out. By that time the escaping kender were filtering through the open ranks of the Juramona Militia. Tol called out to one familiar face.

“Curly Windseed! Where’s your queen, and the humans she went to save?”

The brown-haired kender scrubbed his nose. “They lit out for the other side of the city. Nice of you to meet us, by the way.”

Tol saluted the brash little man. “My pleasure. How was the city?”

“Crowded.”

From one of his many pockets, Curly pulled out a bandanna to wipe his nose. Assorted trinkets – bracelets, rings, coins, and even a tiny silver cup – cascaded to the ground. Quite unabashed, he stuffed these back in his pockets and followed his fellows over the hill, angling north by northwest.

“The treasure’s that way, you know,” Tylocost said.

Tol sighed. “I know.”

The pursuing Riders, once more arranged in two neat lines, trotted through the high grass to within bowshot of the militia. One, bearing the emblem of a herald on his helm, detached from the rest and rode directly to the two mounted men. He hailed them, asking who they were.

Tol responded in ringing tones: “I am Tolandruth of Juramona! In command of the Army of the East!”

Although disconcerted by Tol’s name, the herald looked askance at the men ranged behind him. “Army of the East? This, uh, rabble?” he said.

“This is only the vanguard. We’ve come from the Isle of Elms, where we defeated the Firepath nomads and slew their chief, Tokasin.”

“Huh! What do you want here?”

Tol had been pondering that very question. He wanted his people back alive – Miya, Zala, Queen Casberry, and the rest of the Dom-shu. However, his men expected more. So did the landed hordes who had given their sabers to his service. The nomad menace was over. Although the bakali were still a threat, the true danger to the empire, he admitted to himself, was Ackal V.

“I have come to accept the surrender of Caergoth,” he said after a long pause.

Decades of experience allowed Tylocost to mask his astonishment. The herald had no such reserves to call upon. His jaw dropped open.

“You have taken up arms against the rightful emperor of Ergoth!” he sputtered. His horse pranced nervously, and he jerked on the reins. “You dare to threaten rebellion against His Majesty Ackal V?”

Slowly, Tol drew Number Six and rested the blade across his thighs. His voice once more boomed out, rolling across the quiet field.

“The rest of the army, thirty thousand Riders, is coming. I have no wish to shed the blood of loyal warriors, so all those who wish to may leave the city. The governor and his councilors will remain to face the justice of the people they have wronged. I give you two marks to comply, then I will take Caergoth by force.”

The herald could scarcely credit his ears. Was the man before him insane? He stared at Tol’s grim face, finding no answer there, nor in the annoyingly superior expression on the face of the ugly Silvanesti who rode at his side. The men at his back wore equally determined looks.

The messenger shut his mouth with a snap. “I regret your coming death, my lord. I served with Lord Urakan in Hylo, seventeen years ago.” Directing an angry look at Tylocost, he added, “Your choice of allies these days shows how grievously you have lost your way.”

He yanked his mount’s head around and cantered back to the waiting Riders. Even across the distance it was plain they were astonished to learn Tol’s identity and message. At length they formed up and returned to the city.

When they had gone, an odd ripple in the grass presaged the arrival of Queen Casberry. The green stems were taller than she.

“Your Majesty! Are you alone?” Tol said, looking anxiously behind her for signs of Miya and the rest.

“No kender is ever alone,” she said. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she added, “The rest of the party is coming along shortly, but they’re not alone either – if you know what I mean.”

Tylocost drew Tol’s attention to traces of dust rising in the air. It appeared Miya and company were being pursued.

“You enjoy this sword stuff so much, I leave the rest to you.” Casberry strode past, head held high.

At Tol’s order, a hundred men formed in close order before him. He dismounted and handed his reins to Tylocost.

“Stay here. If the garrison comes out, call up the Riders, and stand and fight.”

Although plainly unhappy with the decision, the elf nodded grimly.

Tol and the company of soldiers jogged away. They descended the slope of the knoll and veered northward, eyes fixed on the plumes of dust moving toward them. On their left, along the wall of Caergoth, the flapping of signal flags tracked their progress.

All of a sudden they found what they sought. Some forty people were struggling through the grass, hampered by the elderly and wounded comrades. Zala carried an aged, unkempt man on her back. Her father, Tol reckoned. The man whose life he’d guaranteed.

Taller than the rest was Voyarunta. On his thigh a hastily arranged bandage was soaked with blood. He was supported by his younger daughter.

Relief flooded through Tol and he shouted Miya’s name.

“Husband!” she cried, her strained, sweating face breaking into a smile. “Make yourself useful!”

When the pursuers came galloping over the rise, they were surprised to find, not unarmed, ragged prisoners, but armed infantry ready to meet them. Tol’s men had formed a hollow square with the escapees inside. The leading Riders hesitated, and the whole troop milled about for a moment. Re-forming, they charged, waving sabers and shouting. The Juramonans, hardened by screaming nomad attacks, stood firm, and the Riders pulled up when they saw the militia wasn’t going to break.

Taking advantage of their indecision, Tol ordered, “By section, close ranks and advance!”

The men on the far side of the ring moved in to fill the gaps between the men on the engaged side. Then, with spears ported under their arms, the whole troop advanced on the horsemen.

The startled Riders stood their ground, hacking at the spearpoints with their sabers, but the compact band of foot soldiers kept coming. Horses lost their footing in the confused press and toppled, throwing their noble riders. Alarmed, the captain of the Riders called for retreat.

Tol let them go. Eight Riders had fallen, either wounded or unconscious, but the Juramonans hadn’t lost a man. The militia backed away as the escaped prisoners scurried to safety.

Tol caught up with Miya, still supporting her injured father. He asked why she and the other Dom-shu were so far from their forest home.

Frowning at his gruff tone, Miya looked up at her father. “See? He is an ungrateful wretch! How’s Sister?”

He said she was fine, and coming with Egrin and the main body of the army. Relief flooded Miya’s face.

“Praise Zivilyn! She left the village with her burial beads, you know.”

Tol stopped in his tracks. He hadn’t known. When a Dom-shu warrior came of age, he or she was required to weave a headband that would be worn only when the warrior expected to die in battle. When Kiya had left her people to become Tol’s hostage and wife, her beads had remained with Voyarunta, To have brought her death raiment with her on this journey was an ominous sign.

Drums clattered and horns blared from the distant city. The southwestern gate – called the Centaur Gate for its representation of a tribe of galloping centaurs wrought in fine bronze – swung open. Horsemen six abreast trotted forth. Soon two hordes had deployed across the paved road leading southwest to Daltigoth.

More horns proclaimed the emergence of a third horde, and a fourth could be seen mustering inside the barbican. The presence of four thousand Riders meant Wornoth was no longer concerned about a handful of fleeing prisoners. He intended to kill Tol. Militia and escapees alike quickened their pace.

Tol finally noted the absence of Helbin, and Zala said he’d been captured. This likely meant the wizard was dead.

The group was moving as fast as they could. A flight of arrows arced up from the battlements of Caergoth and descended. The missiles fell far short, but the Ergothian hordes started forward in pursuit formation. On foot, and burdened with weak and wounded people, Tol’s band couldn’t outpace horsemen. The first Riders caught up with them, then passed by on either side.

There was no choice but stand and fight. He pushed his group hard until they reached a spreading oak, the largest tree in sight. The militiamen deployed in a circle around the tree. The escapees clustered around its base. Zala, Miya, Chief Voyarunta, and the Dom-shu warriors borrowed swords from the spear-armed militiamen and formed a tight group around Tol.

Without preamble or any call to surrender, the Ergothians attacked. They came straight in, and ran onto a wall of spears. Recoiling, they left a dozen dead and dying. Again they surged forward, on two fronts, trying to pinch the small band in two.

One Ergothian pushed his horse through the melee, thinking to come up on Tol’s blind side. Miya shouted a warning. Tol whirled, and his attacker’s blade met Number Six with a clang of iron on steel. Disengaging quickly, Tol sliced the saddle girth. Rider and saddle crashed to the ground. Tol thrust home through the armpit gap in the Rider’s breastplate.

After more furious fighting, the Riders withdrew. The reason quickly became clear – Tylocost was coming. The remainder of the militia was marching in two compact blocks, bristling with spearpoints. Behind them, cantering quickly, was the demi-horde of Riders Tol had left in reserve. The Caergoth hordes circled the slow-moving militia, looking for a weak spot to exploit. Doggedly, the two phalanxes came on. As Tol’s mounted men drew near, the Caergoth hordes pulled back.

“Their hearts aren’t in it,” Miya observed. Sweat plastered her short hair to her face, and she was breathing hard. There were no soft Dom-shu, but six years as a village mother had ill-prepared her for fierce combat.

As he watched the Caergoth Riders withdraw a short distance, Tol suddenly frowned. Riders of the Great Horde retreating after only a brief engagement with foot soldiers? And withdrawing in the face of a force of Riders only a quarter their strength? Understanding struck him.

“You’re right!” he declared. “Their hearts aren’t in it!”

Tol called for his cornet. A young fellow, once a journeyman brewer from Juramona, arrived and was told to blow “Parley.” The brewer didn’t know how, so Tol sang the four notes for him. The cornet repeated the notes properly and Tol slapped him on the back. “Get up that tree and blow until I tell you to stop!”

The lad clambered up the oak, assisted by the strong arms of several Dom-shu. After lodging himself in the high branches, he put the brass horn to his lips.

He had sounded “Parley” several times before the imperial horsemen took note. Silence fell as the hordes re-formed their lines. A delegation of eight horsemen advanced from the Caergoth contingent: four horde commanders, each with his standard bearer. Tol recognized those standards. The Lightning Riders, the Bronzehearts, the Caer Blades, and the Iron Falcons had served under him in the war with Tarsis.

The leader of this delegation also was known to Tol. A barrel-chested warrior with a forked black beard, Geddrig Zanpolo, commander of the Iron Falcons, was a formidable fighter and widely hailed as a brave warrior. His famous beard had been grown, it was said, to hide the deep notch cut in his chin by a wild centaur. Disarmed, grievously wounded, Zanpolo had slain the centaur bandit with his bare hands.

Tol decided to go out alone to meet the delegation. Such veteran warriors of the Great Horde would not talk to him were he accompanied by women, foot soldiers, or foreigners. He reckoned he could trust the honor of the warlord of the Iron Falcons.

He left the shade of the oak tree and walked out into the midday sun. He headed uphill through the trampled grass to a small ledge of weathered sandstone. This put him at the same height as the approaching mounted men, so there he waited.

Eight riders drew up in a line before him.

“My lord,” Zanpolo greeted him. “I was told you led this motley army. I am sorry to see it!”

“Save your sorrow. You see before you the advance guard of the Army of the East.”

“I know of no such army. Who created it? Not the emperor.”

“We created it ourselves. Nomads had burned and looted half the eastern provinces. Were we to sit idle simply because the emperor could not be bothered to defend his own people?”

“I wouldn’t,” Zanpolo admitted.

“This parley is illegal! We cannot treat with a proscribed man!”

This outburst came from a younger warrior at Zanpolo’s left, the commander of the Caer Blades. He added, “By rights, we should take his head and present it to the governor!”

The young warlord’s hand moved to rest on his sword hilt, but Zanpolo growled, “This is a parley, Hallack. I’ll cut down the first man who dares draw a blade!”

Tol relaxed. With this proof of Zanpolo’s honor, he decided to make the appeal he’d been rehearsing in his mind.

“Warriors of Ergoth,” he said loudly, for all to hear, “you know me. Some of you fought with me against the Tarsans. Ten years we fought together, hoot to boot, shoulder to shoulder. We were not city soldiers then, living in warm barracks and eating in taverns. For a decade we rode together, sleeping on the ground, eating from the same pot.

“After the war was won,^our late emperor, Pakin III, died and I was recalled to Daltigoth. So were many of you. There, while serving the new emperor, Ackal IV, I became involved in the machinations of the rogue wizard Mandes, who had done me much wrong. He was driven into exile and began a campaign of evil against the empire. I convinced His Majesty Ackal IV to let me bring Mandes to justice. This I did.”

The Riders, except for Zanpolo, showed signs of impatience. They knew this story. Tol’s next words erased their boredom.

“It was the worst mistake of my life. While I was away from Daltigoth, Prince Nazramin usurped the throne.” Anger bloomed on Lord Hallack’s face. Tol pinned him with a glare. “Yes, usurped,” he repeated. “Through the use of evil magic, Nazramin drove his brother mad, then had him deposed and murdered.

“When I returned from dealing with Mandes, the new emperor stripped me of my titles and authority, and had me beaten nearly to death. He could hardly allow the champion of his late, unhappy brother to go free, so he had me proscribed.

“For six years I have dwelt among the foresters, my friends the Dom-shu. There I learned again how decent and honest people behaved. We’ve long despised the tribes of the east as savages, but they treated me with fairness and generosity.”

Tol’s expression grew hard again. “Then the bakali and the nomads invaded the empire. Ackal V made only half-hearted attempts to defend the east, preferring to hold back the Great Horde to defend Daltigoth. With what result? Murder, pillage, fire, and waste! Juramona and a score of lesser towns are in ruins. Farms have been burned, herds scattered or slaughtered. Orchards have been left to rot, mines and markets are empty. Tens of thousands are without food or shelter. In the east there was no law, no order!

“Egrin, Raemel’s son, came to me in the Great Green and convinced me to return. I hammered together the Juramona Militia, which you see accompanying me today. We fought off armies of nomads while Egrin summoned the landed hordes from all the eastern provinces. Together, the militia and landed Riders drove the nomads out of the empire, slaying two of their great chiefs in the process.”

Zanpolo nodded, breaking his stern silence. “We heard as much, from prisoners,” he said. “We did not know you led the landed hordes.” A trace of a smile crossed his lips. “Though I should have guessed.”

“This is irrelevant!” snapped Hallack, unable to contain himself any longer. “This man has been condemned by the emperor himself! It is our duty to arrest him and deliver him to the governor!”

“Our duty,” Zanpolo said quietly, “is to the empire.”

Tol looked his old comrade in the eyes. This was exactly what he’d been hoping to hear!

“I have thirty-two hordes in the Army of the East,” he said. “With the garrison of Caergoth added, we’ll be strong enough to defeat the bakali and save our country!”

“And what about the emperor?” asked Zanpolo, after a pause, black brows lifting.

Choosing his words with utmost care, Tol said, “An emperor who does not defend his country should not be emperor.”

“Treason!”

Lord Hallack erupted out of line, drawing his saber. Tol stepped back, reaching for Number Six, but before he had done more than grasp the hilt, Zanpolo spurred his horse forward. He caught Hallack’s sword arm in one hand, and with the other, backhanded him across the face. The harsh blow sent the Ackal loyalist flying from his horse. Out cold, he rolled over and over in the grass, down to the foot of Tol’s perch.

Zanpolo looked at the other two warlords, who sat calmly, hands folded across the pommels of their saddles.

“Moristan. Caminol. What say you?”

Moristan, commander of the Bronzehearts, inhaled and exhaled slowly. “For six years,” he said with customary deliberateness, “I’ve done nothing but collect taxes and chase unworthy bandits. When the nomads invaded, Wornoth kept us here to defend the city, even though the barbarians had no way to breach the walls.”

Caminol’s response was more succinct. “The Lightning Riders serve the empire, not one man,” he said, nodding to Tol and the other two warlords.

“So, what will you have us do, my lord?” Zanpolo asked Tol.

Hope surged through Tol’s weary frame. “Take Caergoth, first,” he said. “Will the hordes inside resist us?”

“A few young hotheads might, and Wornoth’s guard. No one of consequence.”

“Then let’s enter now. The governor will think we have surrendered and you have captured us!” The three warlords agreed.

Tol hurried back to his people, still clustered around the oak tree. When he told them what had transpired, they were incredulous. Except Miya.

“That’s Husband,” she said, shrugging. “Throw him in a pit of snakes, and he’ll make friends with all the vipers!”

The Juramonans formed two columns, one behind the other, and set off toward the city. Tol rode at the head of the foremost column. At Zanpolo’s order, the unconscious Lord Hallack was draped over his horse and the beast’s reins given over to one of his men. Word flashed like lightning through the Caergoth troops: instead of fighting Lord Tolandruth, they were going to follow him!

Riding close to Zanpolo toward the city gate, his men chanting his name, Tol was filled with emotion. His mind whirled, but not with battle plans. He couldn’t stop thinking of Valaran as he’d last seen her: her face white as the ermine robes she wore, green eyes spilling tears onto winter-pale cheeks.

Whatever happens, you must live – because I will return.

That was the promise he’d made her on the snowy field outside Daltigoth. With every warrior he gained, every battle he won, he was coming closer to fulfilling that oath. Yet no battle, no honor could make him complete until he held her in his arms again.

Chapter 21

THE ANVIL

Tol’s entry into Caergoth was more confusing than glorious. Zanpolo chose to return the same way he left, via the Centaur Gate. The gate opened readily enough, but the soldiers there were plainly puzzled to hear the returning warriors shouting the name of the man they’d been sent to destroy. Zanpolo quickly ordered his own men to displace the city troops at the gates. No blood was shed; after a brief scuffle, the surprised soldiers found themselves imprisoned in their own barbican. Their compatriots, looking down on these events from the battlements, abandoned their posts.

“Little birds are flying away,” Miya said, gesturing toward the fleeing men.

Tol nodded. The men would certainly carry word of his coming to Lord Wornoth. As there was no way to prevent it, there was no reason to worry about it.

The first city square beyond the Centaur Gate was known as the Starwalk. Its broad white pavement was marked with bronze stars, and black lines of basalt radiated from a common point not quite in the center of the square. The square was a public observatory. By standing on the lines or on the various bronze markers at appropriate times during the year, ordinary folk could mark the movements of the moons and stars.

This day, it was not being used for any lofty purpose. Like all Caergoth’s public squares, the Starwalk had become a squalid shanty town crowded with war refugees.

Tol reined up. His Juramonans halted behind him. Zanpolo stopped his own horsemen and doubled back to see what was wrong. He found Tol surveying the smoky, fetid scene in the Starwalk with a scowl on his face.

Zanpolo grimaced with understanding. “I know,” he said. “With a few hundred sabers I’d clear this trash out!”

Tol shook his head, but said nothing. He turned in the saddle to look back at the column winding behind him. There was Queen Casberry, once more in her beloved sedan chair, borne on the capable shoulders of Front and Back; Uncle Corpse and his Dom-shu, a bit worse for wear; and the half-elf huntress, Zala, who had refused all aid and still carried her frail father. Still further back, the ugliest Silvanesti in the world led a human militia comprising artisans, merchants, farmers, and herders. Somewhere in the city, thousands of men were wearing out horses to join Tol’s army. Retired warriors, they’d left home and hearth and taken up the weapons they’d hung up years ago. In their company was the oddest contingent of all – soldiers of an army Tol had defeated, now led by a wealthy, embittered woman who had lost her own daughter in a struggle not her own.

All these people – all these different people – had come so far and done so much because of him. Their loyalty, their faith in him, had brought them from every corner of the empire and lands beyond.

Dismounting, Tol handed the reins to Miya, who’d been walking alongside.

“Watch out,” she said, seeing the look in his eyes. “Husband’s up to something.”

“All of you stay here. No matter what happens, stay here till I call you,” Tol said.

He walked into the maze of temporary shelters covering the Starwalk. The refugees moved out of his way. They knew to make themselves scarce when a warrior came near. They came from half a hundred small towns, from isolated farms, and from semi-nomadic camps. Not all were Ergothian. This human avalanche had been set in motion a thousand leagues away, by the arrival of the bakali and by attacks from plainsmen also displaced by the lizard-men. Most refugees regarded Tol blankly as he moved among them. If they did react, it was with fear.

Anger swelled in Tol’s breast. This was not why he had become a warrior. Most Riders of the Great Horde, born into wealth if not outright nobility, considered this their due – daily tribute in the form of terror. But Tol had chosen the life of a soldier because it promised more than endless years grubbing in the dirt, herding recalcitrant pigs, and praying daily to the gods for sun and rain, but not too much of either. He’d led a full life, earned loyal friends, and loved an intelligent, beautiful woman. The time had come to pay for those past pleasures and glories.

Forty paces away from his waiting comrades he found a waist-high stone pedestal and climbed on it. An alabaster disk was inset in its top. From this spot, when the square was clear, one could mark the passage of Solin through the seasons.

Those immediately around him fell silent and regarded him uncertainly. The quiet spread through the square, with neighbor nudging neighbor and gesturing at the warrior standing atop the Solin pedestal. Tol waited until the silence was complete, then spoke.

“People, listen to me! I am —” An instant’s thought, then — “Tol of Juramona. I bring you good news. The tribes who ravaged your homes have been defeated!”

There was no response. A baby began to cry. Several people coughed.

“You can go home! The nomad invaders are gone!”

The baby continued to howl. There were more coughs. A woman called out, “We ain’t got no home! They burned it!”

“You can build another!” Tol replied. “But you must leave the city! It’s too crowded for you to remain!” He was amazed disease hadn’t broken out among the refugees already.

“You drivin’ us out, m’lord?” asked a man standing nearby.

Exasperation sharpened Tol’s voice. “No! I’m telling you, you can leave! The nomads are driven out.”

“So it’s safe?”

Tol’s impatience evaporated. He answered honestly. “No, it’s not.”

The crowd began to mutter, confused and unhappy. Tol raised his voice again, saying, “But when were you ever safe? Were you safe when cruel warlords ruled over you, and a ruthless, mad emperor ruled them? You’ve never been safe, but the nomads have been defeated, and you must leave Caergoth. Here, there is only poverty and illness!”

Unfortunately, the wider import of his words was lost.

“The emperor is mad?”

“We was never safe? I thought the city wall was supposed to keep us safe.”

“I told ya’ they’d come to drive us out, and here they are!”

“This emperor is mad, too?”

“Let’s get out’fore they attack us!”

Some refugees grabbed their meager possessions and set out for the nearest gate. Others argued whether to stay or go. These grew so heated that Tol was jostled off the platform.

When he disappeared into the crowd, Zanpolo and his captains spurred their mounts forward. They separated Tol from the mob and ushered him back to his waiting people.

Zanpolo’s bearded face wore a smile. “Clever stratagem, my lord! You’ve sowed the seeds of a riot,” he said. “It will tie up Wornoth’s loyal troops!”

Tol didn’t bother answering. He hadn’t meant to start a riot. He’d hoped to make the people understand they should reclaim their lives and not blindly follow the whims of emperors, warlords, or any of their lackeys. But the hopeless, helpless squatters didn’t see him as “Tol of Juramona,” born one of them. To them, he was Lord Tolandruth, Rider of the Great Horde, oppressor and protector. That he could be interested in their well-being was as unfathomable to them as the workings of the celestial map on which they squatted.

The noise around him quickly grew deafening. The unrest Tol had unintentionally incited radiated outward, spreading from the Starwalk through the clogged streets, to the next square, and the next.

“What did I tell you?” Miya shouted above the chaos. “When Husband acts, the world trembles!”

“This is crazy!” Tol protested. “I told them to go home and live for themselves. They think I threatened them!”

Tylocost said, “You did threaten them. You told them they weren’t safe. Safety was the one lie they all believed in.”

Zanpolo bawled orders at his men. Tol, feeling stunned and stupid, mounted his horse.

They headed for the citadel, sited atop the tallest hill in the city. Zanpolo’s hordes banged their sword hilts against their armored chests. The ominous sound frightened the refugees and they shrank from the column of fighting men. The hordes cleaved through the crowd without bloodshed, as Riders swatted slow-moving squatters, or booted them aside.

At the Great Square of Ackal Dermount, near the center of the city, they encountered their first serious opposition. The square seethed with panicked refugees, and at the opposite end of the plaza were several hundred horsemen in the funereal white and silver livery of the Governor’s Own Guard. Their sabers were out.

“Here’s where we cleave a few skulls,” Zanpolo said.

“Can we try persuasion?” asked Tol.

“Not with them, my lord. They take Wornoth’s coin, even as the Lord Governor takes the emperor’s. They’ll fight.”

Tol knew he was right. “Give quarter to any who ask for it, but we must reach the citadel before Wornoth seals himself inside.”

Zanpolo rallied his own horde, the Iron Falcons, with a roar that made Tol’s hair stand on end. With an answering bellow, the Riders raised their sabers high, then extended them at arm’s length. Zanpolo called for a point charge. In the tight confines of Caergoth’s streets, there wasn’t room for a full-tilt attack.

The Iron Falcons bolted across the Great Square. On their flanks, the Lightning Riders and the Bronzehearts surged forward. The Juramona Militia broke out of marching order and formed a wall of shields around those on foot. Tol rode with Zanpolo.

Innocent townsfolk and terrified refugees raced out of the way of Zanpolo’s charge. Some did not make it, and were trampled.

The Governor’s Own men were confused. They thought Zanpolo’s attack was directed at the refugees choking the Great Square. Their hesitation lasted only briefly, but it was long enough. If they had withdrawn immediately up the narrower side streets, Zanpolo’s thrust would have been less effective. Instead, they took the full brunt of the Iron Falcons’ charge.

Tol was bent low over his horse’s neck, Number Six extended. A guardsman tried to deflect his point with the small iron buckler strapped to his left forearm. Dwarf-forged steel pierced the buckler and, propelled by Tol’s strength and the horse’s speed, drove on through with only a momentary scrape of resistance. As their horses collided, Number Six buried half its length through the man’s neck. Tol recovered, and the guardsman slid lifeless to the ground.

After the initial contact, a brisk, slashing battle followed. The weight and power of the Falcons drove the Governor’s Own men back to the walls of the House of Luin, the hall of the Red Robe Order in Caergoth. Stubbornly, the governor’s men fought on.

“We can’t spend all afternoon at this!” Tol shouted at Zanpolo. “Keep going here – I’ll take my footmen on!”

“Can you really get through with that lot?” said Zanpolo, with a Rider’s traditional disdain for foot soldiers.

“They got me here, didn’t they?”

Tol broke off and rode back to his Juramonans, standing at the other end of the Great Square. All the civilians had fled and he made quick time across the empty plaza, sheathing his saber as he arrived.

Tol and the militia would head for the palace, with Zala leading the way. Her father, Voyarunta, and the other wounded would remain behind with the Dom-shu men. Miya, armed with spear and shield borrowed from a Dom-shu warrior, stood ready to go with Tol.

He gave her a surprised look, and she shrugged. “If you get yourself killed and I’m not there, Sister will skin me.”

Tol’s lips twitched at her reasoning, but he addressed himself to Queen Casberry, asking her to remain behind also.

The kender queen, dressed today in a sky blue tunic and matching trousers, consented and immediately invited Voyarunta to join her in a dice game called Three Times Dead.

Tol divided the two thousand men of the Juramona Militia into four companies of five hundred. Each company would follow a different route through the grid of streets, marching parallel to each other and reuniting before the main gate of the Caergoth citadel. Zala gave them quick directions that would allow them to avoid the public plazas, where troops loyal to Wornoth might have congregated.

Tol’s orders were simple. If challenged, the militiamen should fight. But if the opportunity arose, they were to offer opponents the chance to join them, and keep heading toward the palace.

The four companies set off at a trot. Tol, Miya, and Zala went with the center-right column. Tylocost accompanied the far left.

As they progressed, the streets grew increasingly narrow. Miya complained and Tol explained the constriction was intentional, to prevent large bodies of troops from attacking the governor’s palace.

At one intersection they flushed out a band of archers. The militia company charged, but the surprised bowmen, armed only with mauls for close-range fighting, turned and fled.

After passing down another tight street, the Juramonans found themselves before the citadel’s ceremonial gate. This portal, dedicated to Draco Paladin, was open, and some fifty soldiers wearing the governor’s colors milled about it in confusion. As the Juramona spearmen emerged from the alley, the soldiers sent up a shout. The ponderous double doors of the gate began to close.

“Secure that gate!” Tol bawled, and his contingent rushed pell-mell for the portal.

Tol was confronted by a subaltern wearing a fancy gilded helmet. The fellow was half Tol’s age, but wielded his slim blade with skill. Twice he scored, cutting a bloody line on Tol’s right arm and left thigh. Tol tried to cut him with his stronger blade, but his strikes met only air. The young officer was never still for very long. He darted from side to side, avoiding every swing aimed at him.

Sweat stung Tol’s eyes. His breath moved up and down his throat harshly. He’d never been adept at fancy dueling, and as the contest dragged on, his years began telling on him.

Finally, his enemy’s bright iron blade whisked over Tol’s shoulder, snagging briefly on his earlobe. As blood spurted from the cut, Tol managed to seize the man’s wrist.

“Yield!” he said. “Don’t fight us, join us!”

The subaltern punched Tol in the chest with his buckler. Tol staggered backward. The tip of the young soldier’s blade flashed toward his eyes. Reflexively, Tol threw his head back. A cut opened on the bridge of his nose.

Angry now, Tol gripped his saber in both hands. He made a whirling parry, binding up the officer’s slender, straight blade. The fellow hit him again and again with the iron boss of his small shield, but Tol ignored these blows, concentrating on the motion of the blades. At the top of an arc, he flung his hands up, yanking the young officer’s sword high. Disengaging, Tol drove Number Six at his opponent’s heart.

The subaltern brought up his buckler. An iron saber would have been turned aside, but Tol’s steel point punched through the shield’s brass rim and kept going, running the officer through. Mortally wounded, the fellow stumbled backward, dropping his sword. He gaped at Number Six, its hilt nearly touching his chest. There was no pain or fear on his young face, only bewilderment. He simply couldn’t understand how the saber had penetrated both his buckler and his damascened breastplate.

His eyes grew distant, and his lifeless body fell sideways, as Tol recovered Number Six.

“Husband, the gates!”

Miya’s warning drew Tol’s swift attention. The great portal was slowly swinging shut.

Her warning had been heeded by another as well. Out of the melee dashed a slight figure, sword in hand and a floppy hat on his head. Tylocost, running ahead of his men, sprinted for the closing doors. With the fleetness and agility of his race, he wove through the battle, avoiding swords and spearpoints with astonishing dexterity. Reaching the gate, he twisted sideways through the rapidly diminishing gap.

Tol was thunderstruck. He respected the Silvanesti’s skills as a general and knew him to be brave in the casual way of most well-born warriors. But to fling himself, alone, into the midst of a host of enemies was unbelievably courageous – and reckless.

Yanking himself out of his daze, Tol shouted, “To the gate! To the gate! Never mind the guards!”

The Juramonans tried to comply, but only Zala was nimble enough to evade combat and rush to Tylocost’s aid. Tol saw an unusual expression on the half-elf’s face as she dodged and wove through the fracas.

Zala was worried about Tylocost.

The gates had stopped. When Zala arrived, the space between them was less than the width of her shoulders, but she pushed through.

For a few terrifying moments, she was blind as she left bright sunlight and entered the gatehouse’s gloomy interior. When her eyes adjusted, she beheld four guards dead or dying by the windlass that operated the gate. Tylocost was battling three more, all equipped with polearms that badly outranged his saber. The thunder of footsteps on the wooden stairs behind them told Zala reinforcements were on their way down.

One of the three soldiers aimed a thrust at Tylocost’s blind side. Lightning-fast, Zala drew a long knife from her boot and flew at the man. She turned aside the overhand chop from his halberd, saving Tylocost, The elf glanced at her, pale eyes widening, then resumed dueling with the remaining two guards.

Zala was panting from exertion. This was not her usual style of fighting. She could use a bow, or slay a charging boar with her sword at short range, but protracted battle, first outside the gate and now in the tight confines of the gatehouse, was foreign to her. Her opponent was an older man, his black hair flecked with gray, and he knew his business. He pushed her back with short jabs of the halberd’s spearhead, then followed with broad sweeps of its blade. She couldn’t reach him with her shorter blade.

Clang! The side of the axe caught her hand and sent her sword flying. Before she could recover and bring up her knife, the veteran soldier lunged. His spearhead took Zala below the ribs. She gasped in shock, and fell.

Just then, Tol, Miya, and two hundred Juramonans burst through the gate, knocking the double doors wide. A tragic scene met their horrified gazes: Zala lay on her back, clutching a belly wound from which blood welled. Tylocost stood over her fending off two determined halberdiers. A third lay dead at his feet.

Miya screamed. As she intended, the sound distracted one of the halberdiers. He glanced her way, and instantly died at Tylocost’s hand. The other went down beneath a swarm of Juramonans. Reinforcements coming down the stairs from the gatehouse above likewise met Juramonan iron, and after a brief combat, cried for quarter.

“Spare any who lay down their arms!” Tol shouted. “Search the citadel! Find the governor!”

More of the militia poured in to carry out Tol’s orders, and Tylocost’s saber clattered to the stones as he dropped beside Zala. He took her hand in both of his.

“Stupid girl,” he said. “I didn’t need your help!”

“They’d’ve chopped you to bits,” she gasped. Her face was translucent as wax.

Miya’s arms were crimson to the elbows from her efforts to stanch the flow of blood. She looked up at Tol and shook her head. Pain creased Tol’s forehead, and he, too, knelt by the fallen huntress.

Tylocost saw none of this; his attention was focused on Zala, on the blood that continued to well from her terrible wound.

“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not a warrior!” he said, voice harsh with emotion.

“I’ll soon be out of your way.”

He squeezed her hand, and her fingers twitched weakly in response. Helplessly, he whispered her name, heedless of the tears that were falling. Her dark eyes stayed on his face. She blinked once, then her hand went limp in his. Tylocost gently closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Husband,” Miya said quietly.

Tol touched her shoulder, but there was no time for more. Armed men were streaming past them.

“We must go. We must find Governor Wornoth,” Tol said. “Tylocost?”

“I will be here.”

Tol and Miya left the grieving general where he was. As they ascended the steps into the palace proper, Tylocost removed his absurd gardener’s hat and placed it gently over Zala’s face. He began to speak softly, in the melodic language of his people, offering an ancient prayer to Astarin.

*

Tol strode through the halls, boots thumping loudly on the carpeted floors. He’d been here before and knew the way to the audience hall. Close at his heels was Miya. Behind her, the crowd of soldiers gawked at the opulence. Wornoth had expensive taste, and had decorated the public halls of the palace with thick carpets, elaborate tapestries, and the finest works of the sculptor’s art.

All resistance had collapsed. The only people they encountered were servants or courtiers, often burdened with loot liberated from the city coffers. If they dropped their booty and fled, Tol ignored them. If they tried to flee with their ill-gotten goods, Tol sent soldiers after them.

The doors of the audience hall were bolted. Tol stood aside, and militiamen hacked the polished darkwood panels with axes. In a trice they broke through.

Within, a fire blazed on the marble floor. Two men were feeding parchment scrolls to the flames. The shorter, younger man was Wornoth.

“Seize the governor!” Tol commanded.

Wornoth wore a dagger, but offered no resistance beyond abusive language. While attention was focused on him, the other man – a portly, yellow-haired cleric unknown to Tol – took a small vial from his gray robe and flung it at them. It struck the floor two steps in front of Tol, and shattered.

The very air shuddered. Everyone but Tol was knocked flat by an invisible blast. Even as they were falling, Tol rushed up to the priest and put the sharp edge of Number Six to his double chin.

“Any more magic, and I’ll set your head on a spike!”

The astonished cleric surrendered but demanded, “Who are you, that the Hand of the Wind does not touch you?”

“Tol of Juramona!”

It was Wornoth who had answered his cleric’s question. The governor’s nose was bleeding and he glared in impotent fury at his captor.

“Traitorous barbarian!” he shrieked at Tol. “You’ll die a hundred times for this outrage!”

Tol ignored him. The fire had been reduced to glowing embers by the Hand of the Wind. He raked the point of his saber through the hot ashes and came up with a large, un-burned piece of parchment. It contained a list of figures. At the bottom was written, in a neat, scribal hand, “Collected from the squatters in University Square.”

The governor was apparently trying to hide his misdeeds, not from Tol, but from the person he’d been cheating: his patron, the emperor of Ergoth. If Ackal V learned Wornoth had not been sending him the full amount extorted from the refugees, his fury at being cheated would certainly cost the governor his head.

Tol dropped the parchment scrap. “For failing to defend the people under your rule, I depose you, Governor,” he intoned. “Once we sort out what’s happened here, I’m certain we’ll find other crimes to charge you with.”

“You have no authority! You are a proscribed man!”

Number Six came up so quickly everyone in the hall flinched at the sudden flash of steel.

“This is my authority! The empire was made by the sword, and it can be unmade the same way!” Tol stalked toward the governor —

— and found his way blocked by Miya. Unlike her stalwart sister, she was no warrior. She did not raise her weapon or speak, just stood before him, golden-brown eyes brimming with sympathy.

Tol glared at her for only a heartbeat. Her action made him realize just how close he was to murdering the unarmed Wornoth. The image of Zala, dead on the cold stones below, filled his head, and he was shaking with wrath.

Still staring at the silent woman before him, Tol growled, “Get him out of here! Put him and the priest in separate cells under close guard. And search the cleric thoroughly before you lock him up!”

The captives were removed. Tol turned away. He burned with the need to strike something. The governor’s elaborate chair – the literal seat of power here in Caergoth – offered a handy target. He smote its heavy carved wooden back with Number Six, cleaving it halfway down.

“Listen,” Miya hissed. “Do you hear? Temple bells!”

The deep tolling penetrated even the citadel’s thick walls. Did they signify a new alarm, or a celebration of the city’s downfall?

The answer came in the form of a messenger who burst into the hall. The man saluted Tol.

“My lord! Lord Egrin is here with the army!”

Miya and Tol looked at each other. The Dom-shu woman grinned.

“Sister missed all the fun!”

*

Bells were pealing in Daltigoth, too. The emperor had returned in triumph after destroying the bakali in one epic battle. His welcome was surprisingly muted. The streets were crowded, but the people were more relieved than joyous. The day itself was less than auspicious, too. Gray clouds towered overhead, and the air was heavy with a threatening storm.

Ackal V rode into his capital with Prince Dalar on the saddle in front of him. Arrayed behind the emperor were his surviving warlords, less than half the number who had departed Daltigoth with him not so many days before. Following them were those warriors who had distinguished themselves in the battle. Many were seriously wounded. There was an interval of space, and then a rider bearing the standard of the Thorngoth Sabers. The Sabers had performed so nobly in destroying the bakali mound that none of them remained to receive the honors they’d earned.

Behind the standard of the lost horde stretched a long line of wagons laden with booty taken from the defeated enemy. Here and there an article of gold gleamed, but for the most part, the caravan contained arms and armor stripped from the bodies of slain bakali. In addition to the usual ring mail tunics, there were bronze and iron plates that had been shaped to fit strange reptilian bodies. Everything was coated with purplish red bakali gore. The emperor wanted the people of Daltigoth to know what the aftermath of battle looked like – and smelled like. The grisly trophies would be dumped in the plaza before the great temple of Corij, as an offering to the god of war. When an appropriate amount of time had passed, smiths would collect the armor and melt it down. Bronze would be used for statues honoring Ackal V, iron would go to the imperial arsenal, and the blades and helmets would enter service again with the Great Horde.

Near the end of the long line of wagons, the cargo abruptly changed. The bloody armor was replaced by piles of leathery, yellow-gray objects, each the size of a smallish wine cask. These were bakali eggs, salvaged from the ruins of the nest mound. Tens of thousands of eggs had been destroyed by the collapse of the mound and, later, by conscripted laborers. At the last moment, on a whim, Ackal V ordered a few dozen saved. Some would be given to his scholars to study. The rest he intended to let hatch, if they would. A few lizard-men would make interesting slaves.

The procession wound through the straight, wide streets of the New City. The Temple of Corij, largest in Daltigoth, lay at the edge of the Old City, its sacred precincts surrounded by a low granite wall. The hammered golden gates depicted, on one panel, Ackal Ergot, twice life size, mounted on a rearing horse. Facing him, and equal in size, was Corij himself, on his divine war-horse Skyraker. Their postures made it look as though man and god were dueling. As the empire’s founder had once vowed to fight anyone, even the gods, who stood in the way of his vision, the depiction was not entirely untruthful.

As Ackal V approached the temple, priests of Corij drew the double doors apart. Elder clerics were already arrayed on the sacred steps. They had donned their priestly vestments of golden scale armor, but in place of the usual brown surcoats, they wore short tabards of Ackal scarlet. Gravely, they watched Ackal V enter the holy confines on Sirrion’s muscular back, his pale, wide-eyed young son seated before him.

The emperor looked up at the temple’s massive dome and squat columned façade, built of rose porphyry and red granite. He well remembered how the priesthood of Corij had loved his father, Pakin III. An old soldier himself, Pakin III gave generous grants of gold and land to the temple. Ackal V did not. He had better uses for his money. Still, one could not ignore the gods completely.

“O Corij!” he shouted, voice echoing against the hard stone face of the temple. “See the tribute I bring you!”

The wagons of wreckage rumbled forward, drawn now by teams of warriors. Although war-horses were allowed in the sacred precinct, lowly draft animals were not.

Ten paces from the temple steps, the first wagon stopped. A dozen brawny Riders of the Great Horde braced themselves under its side and heaved upward. Iron helmets, ring mail tunics, bronze cuirasses, and axes clattered to the ground. The empty wagon was hauled away and another took its place. Wagon after wagon discharged their cargo, until the noisome heap was as high as the emperor on horseback.

The high priest of Corij, a solemn, long-bearded oldster named Hycontas, descended the steps. Once a Rider of the Great Horde, he was a provincial from the empire’s western reaches. His family were minor nobles, not particularly distinguished and only modestly well off. In Ackal V’s eyes he was little better than a peasant.

“Greetings to you, Great Majesty, and to your honored son,” Hycontas said. “It is a mighty gift you bring. The God of War has been well served.”

“Yes, at last. I sent too many fools to do what I should have done myself.” The emperor gave a tight-lipped, faintly mocking smile. “My apologies for the messy state of the offering, but time was short, and there’s much still to do.”

Hycontas bowed, his blue eyes sharp as icicles. “As Your Majesty says, but word has reached us the nomads have been defeated and dispersed back to their homelands.”

Surprise showed briefly on Ackal V’s proud face; he obviously wondered how word had reached the priesthood of the nomads’ defeat. His usual sneer returned quickly and he said, “Those country hordes had better toe the line! I won’t stand for any backcountry heroics!”

Hycontas bowed again. “Your Majesty rules with justice.”

Ackal V studied him for any hint of sarcasm, but Hycontas’s face showed only bland sincerity. The emperor wheeled his horse, turning Sirrion so tightly the horse’s long, dark red tail whipped past the high priest’s face. Hycontas did not react. For his part, Dalar had learned well his father’s abrupt ways and was holding tight to the pommel.

“When the dedication to Corij is complete, send word to the Arsenal, and the tribute will be removed,” Ackal V said over one shoulder, as Sirrion cantered back to the procession outside the temple wall.

Flies were gathering around the pile of gory trophies, and the sun’s heat only strengthened the rank odor of bakali blood. Hycontas ascended the steps to escape the stench. As he did, a shadow fell across him, cast by a single, large black vulture circling overhead.

Messengers come in all shapes, the old priest mused.

Chapter 22

A PLACE IN THE SHADE

Once Governor Wornoth’s capture became known, resistance to the Army of the East ended quickly. Only a small body of troops, the governor’s private guard, was imprisoned in the citadel. The streets grew calm. People seemed dazed, like sleepers awakened from a deep but troubled slumber. Refugees streamed out of Caergoth, leaving by every gate to every point on the horizon.

Tol and Egrin, standing on a balcony of Caergoth’s Riders’ Hall, watched the lines of ordinary folk leaving the city. The view was of the Centaur Gate and, beyond, the road running southwest toward Daltigoth. It was late afternoon, and Tol could hardly credit all that had happened since sunrise, when Zanpolo had escorted them through the city gate.

“It’s not wise to let everyone go,” Egrin was saying. “Those leaving should be questioned. There could be deserters hidden among them – loyalists who’ll carry word to Daltigoth about what happened here.”

“Good. Saves me the trouble of sending word to Ackal V of our coming.”

Egrin started to say more, but loud laughter erupted from the open doorway behind them. Tol smiled. “Sounds like the party is well underway.”

“Something else we must keep an eye on,” the old marshal said gloomily.

They went inside, entering the feasting hall that took up the entire second floor of the Riders’ sanctuary. As he had no intention of ruling Caergoth, Tol had set up his headquarters not in the governor’s palace, but in the Riders’ Hall outside the citadel.

A hasty banquet had been laid out, provided from Wornoth’s impressive larder. The scene within was a merry one. Around the huge table were gathered Zanpolo, Pagas, Argonnel, Mittigorn, Trudo, and the other warlords who’d joined Tol; Casberry and her bearers; the Tarsans, Captain Anovenax and Syndic Hanira; Tylocost; Chief Voyarunta; and the Dom-shu sisters.

The reunion of Kiya and Miya had been memorable. Kiya, riding beside Egrin, had spotted her sister in the mob surrounding Tol at the citadel gate. She dismounted and shouldered her way through the happy throng of Juramonans and city folk, and came up on her younger sibling’s blind side. Gripping Miya’s shoulder, she whirled her around.

“Sister!” Miya exclaimed joyously.

Kiya slapped her hard across the cheek. The people immediately around them fell silent, stunned by the sudden violence.

“How dare you come here! Why did you abandon your child?” Kiya demanded.

Miya planted her fists on her hips. “Abandoned? Eli has more aunts than an anthill!”

So saying, Miya slapped her sister back, knocking the blonde warrior woman sideways.

A handful of militiamen stepped forward to stop what they were sure would be a fierce fight, but Tol waved them off. The sisters, each with the red imprint of a hand on her face, glared at each other, until Kiya finally spoke.

“Not bad – for a mother.”

“Ha! You know our mother had a harder hand than the chief ever did!”

Voyarunta, standing only a few steps away, protested. The sisters simultaneously turned on him and said, “Quiet!” The Chief of the Dom-shu wisely obeyed.

The sisters embraced abruptly, each vigorously pounding the other on the back.

“By Corij, you stink!” Miya chortled happily.

“And you feel fat as a pig!” Kiya countered, laughing.

Now, when Tol and Egrin re-entered the feasting hall, shouts of greeting rose to meet them. The Dom-shu sisters, seated together, saluted them with a wave, and Pagas pressed a cup of foaming beer into Tol’s hand.

Hanira, looking cool and elegant in a gown of pale green silk, called for quiet. From her place at the end of the long table she lifted her goblet and pronounced, “To the conqueror of Caergoth!”

Casberry and the Dom-shu raised their cups and drank, but the Ergothians present looked embarrassed.

Egrin spoke up quickly. “Begging your pardon, Syndic, but we’re not conquerors. Liberators, yes, but Caergoth was and still is an imperial city.”

“And anyone who uses the word ‘rebel’ had better be prepared to draw iron,” growled Zanpolo.

Casberry snorted loudly. She now sported a multitude of gold bracelets and necklaces. These flashed brightly against her tunic of midnight black shot through with strands of crimson and gold.

“For victorious warriors you certainly know how to mince words,” she piped.

Tol shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. Lords Egrin and Zanpolo speak the truth. We have freed Caergoth, not conquered it.” He raised his own cup and amended Hanira’s toast: “To success, and good friends!”

He sat at the head of the table, facing Hanira. Egrin took the chair on his left, and the Dom-shu sisters were arrayed on his right, as befit his wives. By precedence, Queen Casberry should have had Hanira’s place of honor, but the diminutive monarch had chosen her location herself, the seat nearest the keg of lager.

They ate and drank heartily, and conversation remained jocular and light until mention was made of Wornoth, a subject Tol had been hoping to avoid. It was Hanira who broached the delicate subject.

“My lord, what do you intend to do with Governor Wornoth?”

Wornoth deserved swift justice for his many crimes against the people of his city and for his gross negligence in defending the empire. But the man was such a weakling Tol found it somehow shameful to order his death. Others obviously did not share his ambivalence.

“Hang’im,” said Pagas. The other warlords agreed.

“A dog like him doesn’t deserve honorable death by blade,” Trudo said.

“Wornoth will meet justice,” Tol promised, hoping that would be the end of the discussion.

He should have known better. Like a ropesnake, Hanira preferred to surround and strangle her victim slowly, rather than grant a swift death from venom.

She tilted her head. Sunlight streaming through the windows lent a sapphire sheen to her black hair, piled high on her head for this occasion.

“What does that mean, my lord?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

“Gotta execute him,” Casberry said, before he could respond. “He’s a murderous toad, and everybody wants his blood. If you spare him, you’ll look weak, my lord.”

The warlords began enumerating the evils of leniency. Angered, Tol smote the tabletop with his fist.

“Have I said I would spare Wornoth?”

The diners fell silent, and Voyarunta said, “You are chief here, Son of My Life. Do as you think right.”

Hanira sipped wine, preferring this to the beer the others drank. Her honey-colored eyes regarded Tol with amusement over the rim of her goblet. She said no more.

Tol firmly turned the discussion to other matters. “The time has come for some of us to part company,” he said. To Casberry: “Your Majesty, I thank you for your help. Without you and your people, we wouldn’t be in Caergoth right now.”

“If your neighbor’s house is on fire, better to grab a bucket than close the shutters.” She cocked a knowing eye at him, adding, “But Daltigoth is a different proposition, eh? No place for kender in the capital?”

The shrewd little queen had put her bony finger on the heart of the matter. The march on Daltigoth would be extremely dangerous. They had reached the gates of Caergoth unhindered by imperial forces because of Wornoth’s timidity, and his unshakable belief that his garrison, in truth quite powerful, was not sufficient both to defend the city and defeat Tol. Ackal V would have no such worries. Once he realized Tol’s army was coming, he would send the Great Horde to stop them.

Casberry asked how many warriors Tol expected to face. Argonnel answered her.

“The emperor has lost many men to the bakali, I’ve heard,” said the commander of the Iron Scythe Horde. “But I reckon he can draw upon eighty to a hundred hordes.”

Casberry reached for a grape. “Sounds like you’ll need every friend you’ve got.”

“No. None but Ergothians can ride with us to Daltigoth.”

Tol’s quiet, blunt declaration put an end to all merriment. Hanira dabbed her lips with a silken scarf – Ergothians knowing nothing of napkins – and said, “Are you certain, my lord? You’re giving up much good help.”

“It must be so. Your pardon, Syndic, but the presence of foreign troops would change the way our approach is perceived. Instead of patriots and liberators, we’d be seen as invaders.”

“Rebels,” rumbled Zanpolo. “Which we are not!”

“Victors can style themselves any way they choose,” Hanira said. “Losers only die.” She toyed with the goblet before her, turning it slowly in her fingers. “You know the Pakin Pretender is in Caergoth, don’t you?”

Her words struck like well-timed slaps.

“What Pakin Pretender?” Egrin demanded. “The last claimant was slain twenty years ago, in the reign of Pakin III!”

“He had children, did he not?”

Trudo, eldest of the warlords, said, “Three that I know of. All daughters.”

“The youngest, Mellamy Zan, is twenty-five. For the past dozen years she’s lived in Tarsis. She’s come to Caergoth.”

Argonnel leaped to his feet, hand on his sword hilt. “You did this, trickster! You brought the Pakin infection with you from Tarsis!”

Hanira looked up at the red-faced man. “Upon my word as a syndic of the city, I did not,” she said.

Tol curtly told Argonnel to sit down. Once he had, Hanira explained that she’d placed spies among Mellamy Zan’s followers soon after the Pakin princess arrived in Tarsis more than twelve years ago. The troubles in Ergoth had encouraged the new Pretender to leave Tarsis with a small entourage. She had entered Caergoth only yesterday, before Tol arrived.

“Where is she?” Argonnel growled. “Tell us where to find her, and we’ll settle the Pakins for once and all!”

Hanira looked down the long table at Tol. “Well, my lord?”

All eyes turned to Tol. His gaze was locked with the syndic’s. She knew his fragile alliance of disgruntled warlords could not hold against the threat of a new Pakin rebellion. She knew, too, he would loathe having to kill someone who had committed no crime, but who could cause untold trouble in the future. Hanira was positioning herself cleverly. If Tol asked, she could have Mellamy Zan assassinated. The gratitude of the warlords would be enormous. So would her influence in Ergoth.

But there was one fact about the Pakin Pretender that Tol knew he could use to his advantage. “A woman?” he said, forcing a patronizing smile. “One princess is not that important. Still, I’m sure there’s room aplenty in the citadel for another prisoner. So yes, Syndic, I would like to know where Mellamy Zan is.”

Her maneuver had failed. Hanira dissembled politely, promising to put the Pretender in Tol’s hands.

Chief Voyarunta announced himself ready to return home. He’d seen quite enough of the grasslands and its cities of stone. He didn’t say it in so many words, but it was plain he regarded Ergoth as immoral and decadent. The fighting was good, but there was too much plotting and treachery.

“And too many noisy women,” he said.

“You fathered two of the noisiest!” Queen Casberry snorted. There was laughter while Miya flushed and Kiya scowled.

It was agreed, after more wrangling, that all Tol’s foreign friends would depart before the final ride to Daltigoth. Hanira and her Tarsans would leave immediately. Voyarunta and the Dom-shu would remain until Tol left Caergoth, then they would depart. This would allow the chief’s wound to heal before beginning the long trek back to the Great Green.

Around midnight, as the party was breaking up, Tol announced that the Army of the East would depart for Daltigoth in five days. The warlords were startled. It seemed a very short time to organize and equip so momentous an expedition.

In reply, Tol quoted one of Ackal Ergot’s favorite maxims: “‘Suffer or strike, strike or be struck.’ Until we know where the imperial hordes are, and what’s happened to the bakali, we can’t risk being trapped here. For all we know, the emperor could be at our gates tomorrow.”

On that cheerful note, the guests departed. As servants moved in to clear the table and snuff the torches, Tol took Tylocost aside for a private word.

The elf had said little during the meal. His head seemed oddly bereft without his gardener’s hat.

“You’re not going to Daltigoth either,” Tol told him. “I have another task for you. Find out from Syndic Hanira where the Pakin Pretender is. Get the princess – alive – out of Caergoth. Go wherever you like, but send me word of your location once you alight.”

Tylocost’s pale eyes showed a glimmer of interest. “What is your plan, my lord?”

“Only to avoid another civil war. Killing one princess won’t solve anything. But —” He drew a deep breath. “But having a Pakin in reserve may add weight to my dealings with Ackal V.”

Given the marriage habits of high Ergothian nobility, there were scores of Pakins scattered throughout the empire and border regions. Valaran herself was of Pakin blood. Killing Mellamy Zan was no answer; any of her kin could incite a revolt by claiming the throne, if they could gather enough followers. However, having the chief claimant as hostage might have a chilling effect on any warlords who backed her on Ackal V. With the Pretender in his clutches, Tol could use fear of a Pakin uprising to keep the emperor in check.

“You’re putting a great responsibility in my hand,” Tylocost said. “Do you trust me that much?” “You’re the man for the deed.”

Tylocost bowed his head. “I will do as you bid, my lord.” All the nearby torches had been extinguished. A candle on the table reached its last mark and went out. The Silvanesti, silhouetted by the remaining light, said, “I must retire, my lord. I have a task at dawn.”

Tol had an inkling what the task was. “Shall I come?” “Thank you, my lord, but the rite is for Silvanesti only.” Though Zala had been only half-elven, in death such distinctions no longer seemed to matter.

*

Four laborers, hired in Caergoth, dug a deep hole on a hilltop northwest of the city. It was the same hill on which Tylocost had observed Caergoth when he’d first arrived. The treasure caravan was long gone, safely stowed in the citadel.

Dawn was a pale promise on the eastern horizon as Tylocost paid off the diggers and sent them home. He assured them he did not need them to stay and fill in the hole “after.”

The laborers’ two-wheeled cart creaked away, and Tylocost was finally alone among the widely spaced oaks. The grave held two shrouded bodies. Zala would not sleep alone. Her father, Kaeph, had passed away not long after his daughter. His cough was pneumonia, and the Caergoth healers could not save him. He spoke only once, to ask for his child. Miya was sitting with him at the time. She assured him he would be with his daughter very soon. The Dom-shu woman spoke only the truth to the dying man.

Tylocost pressed his palms together and began to chant an ancient Silvanesti song. It was the Wath-Ranata, a hymn for those who perish far from the sacred homeland. He sang it for Zala. The gods would forgive him for performing the hymn in the presence of the human. Tylocost would not part father and daughter again.

The song was long. He sang it as the sun lifted itself above the horizon and washed the land with heat. Bluish gray clouds hovered in the west. The weather would be foul for the ride to Daltigoth.

The last words of the Wath-Ranata echoed over the green hills. Tylocost scattered green leaves and flower petals on the linen shapes nestled in the earth, then took up the spade the diggers had left for him. By the time the hole was filled, he was sweating and dirty.

His final act was to plant a seedling tree on the grave. Every Silvanesti wanted to rest beneath the boughs of a living tree. He’d chosen an apple tree because he liked the idea that Zala would one day bear fruit to all passersby.

The unsightly gardener tied his floppy hat on his head and shouldered his spade like a weapon. The urge to salute, although long-ingrained by decades of military service, did not intrude here.

Tylocost had not buried a comrade. He’d said good-bye to the woman he loved.

*

Ackal V stepped out of his bath. His arms, legs, and chest were mottled with bruises, some already yellowing as they healed. The blows he’d sustained from the bakali might not have brought him down, but they’d certainly made a bold impression. He hadn’t availed himself of the imperial healers, and rarely did. He had little faith in their spells and nostrums, and feared enemies might use the opportunity to hex him.

From her marble bench a few steps away, Empress Valaran kept her eyes averted, studying the mosaic pattern around her feet. She was all too familiar with the sight of her husband unclothed. It was not a view she cared for. Dalar played at her feet, humming to himself as he pushed wooden warriors on horseback across the floor. Some of the toy soldiers were painted red, others gray.

A lackey held up a gray silk robe. Ackal V slipped his arms in and tied the sash with a savage yank. Equal pique marked his movements as he took a golden cup of wine offered by another servant.

Valaran had brought him the unwelcome news of Caergoth’s fall to Tol and the landed hordes. Ackal V cursed Wornoth in between gulps of wine, damning the governor for his lack of backbone. For squeezing taxes from peasants and keeping the high-nosed residents of Caergoth in line Wornoth was adequate, but faced with real opposition, he wilted instantly.

“How was it done?” he asked.

Valaran replied, “Accounts differ, sire, but it seems some or all of the Caergoth garrison went willingly over to the other side.”

“I want their names, all of them! Their families will suffer for this treachery!”

Valaran nodded, but vowed to herself that none of the families would face the emperor’s vengeance.

The emperor asked about troop strength. “According to my spies, he has twenty to thirty hordes,” she replied. “If every man in the Caergoth garrison joins him, he will have fifty-four hordes.”

In fact, the information she had received by messenger pigeon that evening gave the total figure of forty-four hordes. Valaran exaggerated for Tol’s benefit.

Ackal flung the empty cup at the wine steward. The man wasn’t nimble enough and failed to catch the heavy golden vessel. It clanged loudly on the tiles. The steward cringed, knowing he’d just earned a flogging.

“Even if he had a hundred fifty hordes, he couldn’t break into Daltigoth!” Ackal V declared.

Their conversation was interrupted by Prince Dalar. He suddenly began hammering away at the ranks of toy soldiers with a brass rod. Red and gray riders alike went down under his blows, some of the figures splintering.

He’d never been violent with his toys before, and his mother spoke sharply to him. Ackal V laughed.

. “That’s the way, boy,” he said. “In ten years you can do that to real enemies!”

Valaran stood abruptly. “Is that all you require, Majesty?”

“Yes, go. And send Tathman to me.”

She wanted Dalar to come with her, but Ackal V told her to leave the boy where he was.

“I’ll not have the crown prince subjected to the company of that vile mercenary!” Valaran said.

“That vile mercenary is utterly loyal – unlike you, lady.”

She protested, but he stepped closer and took her chin a painful grip. “I know you would like nothing better than to see me dead, and the pig farmer standing here in my place,” he murmured. “You can consign that dream to the vale of night. It’s the farmer who’ll be dead, and that handy trinket he carries will be mine. As you are, lady. Forever.”

She pulled free of him, eyes flashing in anger, then the import of his words sank in. He knew about the Irda millstone? How could that be? How long had he known? Awful thoughts formed in her mind. Was it possible he had known of her plot to bring Tol to Daltigoth, but had done nothing to interfere, just so he could get his hands on the nullstone?

He laughed and kicked Dalar lightly on the rump. “Go with your mother, boy,” he said. “Tathman may not have eaten yet and I’d hate to see him dine on you!”

The five-year-old scampered after his mother, sending toy soldiers skittering over the tiles.

In the corridor outside, several lackeys awaited the emperor’s pleasure. Valaran gestured to one, a lower chamberlain named Fudosh. She relayed the emperor’s summons of the Wolf captain. Fudosh paled, but bowed and hurried to find Tathman.

When Tathman arrived, the emperor was seated at a stone table in his bath chamber, his head resting on his folded arms. His youngest wife, Lady Halie, was anointing his many bruises with a soothing unguent. She could apply the balm as well as a healer, and was far prettier than any acolyte of Mishas.

Ackal V did not look up until Tathman cleared his throat. Coming from a man his size, the sound was like a panther growling.

“Captain,” the emperor said without moving. “Farmer Tol is in Caergoth.”

“Shall I go there and kill him?”

Ackal’s shoulders shook with mirth. “That’s the spirit! No, that won’t he necessary. He’s coming here – with forty thousand warriors.”

The leader of the Wolves regarded his master stolidly. “Better to kill him far away,” he rumbled.

Ackal V glanced at his young wife. Halie knew Tolandruth only as a name. She wouldn’t betray her husband.

He said, “I want this army of traitors to come as close to Daltigoth as they dare. I want them to think success is in their grasp. Then, and only then, I want the farmer captured and brought before me. I will make such a lesson of him that all those country lords will take up priest’s robes!”

Tathman bowed his head, the long braid of his hair falling forward. “Your Majesty is most wise.”

“When the time comes, I may ask you to do things you won’t like,” Ackal V warned.

“If Your Majesty commands, I will pluck out an eye and eat it.”

This declaration, spoken with such conviction, made young Halie pause in her labors. The emperor shrugged his shoulders, signaling her to continue.

“Patience, Tathman. Your time approaches. The prospect of facing the legendary Lord Tol worries you?”

The question was a half-joking one, but Tathman’s reply was deadly serious. “No, Majesty. He bleeds like any man.”

The emperor smiled. Yes, he did bleed. Ackal V had seen Tol bleed. It was a memory he relished.

He ordered the Wolves back to the Inner City to receive instructions, training, and new equipment. When he explained his idea, Captain Tathman finally showed surprise.

“Objections?” asked the emperor.

“No, Majesty.”

Once Tathman had withdrawn, Halie paused her ministrations to renew the balm on her hands.

“Is Your Majesty in danger?” she asked diffidently.

“No.” Ackal put his head down again on his folded arms.

“But if you speak of what you’ve heard here, I’d have to cut off your head.”

His young consort smoothed the white unguent across his hare shoulders.

“I would never speak of it, sire. Better my tongue should be cut out!”

Now there was a possibility, Ackal mused. And Valaran liked to believe she was the smartest of his wives.

Chapter 23

TRIAL AND ERRAND

The cells beneath the gray citadel of Caergoth were much like the city itself – wide, light, and surprisingly clean. Everything about them was double the norm: the width of the central corridor, the size of the cells, the height of the ceiling. The walls also were twice as thick as usual. Tol and Egrin walked down the central passage, looking at the open, empty cells. Wornoth had sent all the prisoners to the big cages erected in the city’s main square to make room for extra soldiers and supplies for the citadel. With the overthrow of the governor, the dungeon was empty. An unnatural quiet had settled over the place. Only a few of the candles in the wall sconces were lit, so Tol carried a lantern.

The four levels of the dungeon held only a solitary occupant. No guard stood at the massive bronze-plated door to the prisoner’s cell, as the dungeon itself was considered proof against escape. Tol leaned into the deep doorway and rapped on the door to announce their entry. Once Egrin had thrown the heavy bolt and pulled the door open, Tol thrust his lantern into the grayness beyond.

It was a large room for a single prisoner, illuminated by a single candle. Cut into the far wall was a stone niche designed for a bedroll. Here, former governor Wornoth sat slumped. He did not look up as they entered.

“If you’ve come to assassinate me, I curse you both!” he said hoarsely, sniveling into the sleeve of his dirty robe.

Egrin grimaced in disgust. “Sit up, man,” he said. “Show some dignity!”

“We’re not here to slay you,” Tol said. “We’ve come to tell you about your trial.” Wornoth lifted his pale face, blinking in surprise. “You will be judged by a jury of nine warriors, chosen by lot.”

Such a procedure was unknown in Ergoth, where justice was dispensed from on high by imperial officials. At the pinnacle was the emperor, whose utterances were law. The marshals enforced this law, ruling over provinces known as “hundreds” – a term that had once referred to the number of warlords serving the marshal, but was now merely a geographical term. Each marshal was attended by wardens, whose number in each hundred varied according to the strength of the population. The Eastern Hundred, Tol’s homeland, had one warden. Caergoth had four.

At the lowest level, justice was enforced by bailiffs. These were usually Riders of the Great Horde appointed for a specific purpose – to catch a notorious outlaw, or to investigate a murder in some remote corner of the realm. Tol had learned of trial by jury in Tarsis, where the procedure was common.

“I am the imperial governor, appointed by His Majesty Ackal V! All I have done, I have done in his name!”

“Make no mistake, Wornoth. You’re not being tried for being a vicious, petty tyrant, though you ought to be,” Tol said. “The principle charge against you is failing to defend the eastern provinces of the empire. By keeping your hordes in Caergoth, you allowed the nomads to ravage four provinces. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of imperial subjects perished, villages were sacked and property destroyed by your folly. That is your crime.”

Wornoth’s face grew even paler. He whispered, “I did what I thought best. You can’t condemn me for that!”

“It is not up to me to condemn you for anything. That’s why we’re having a trial. It begins at dawn.”

Tol turned to go. Wornoth sprang from his sleeping niche and grasped Tol’s knees. Egrin’s sword was out in a trice, but alarm quickly turned to revulsion.

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Wornoth gabbled wildly, “Please, gracious lord! Please, spare me! I made mistakes, yes, but I can rectify them! I can! Please! Please!”

“Get hold of yourself!” Tol said, trying to pry him loose. “For Corij’s sake, be a man!”

“But I don’t want to die! I did only what I thought my emperor wanted me to do! Please!”

Tol managed to shove him away. Wornoth fell backward and lay still, sobbing and pleading.

“You’re going to Daltigoth, aren’t you? I can be of use to you, great lord. I know much about the emperor’s doings. I can tell you things!”

Egrin asked, “Would you betray your sovereign?”

“Yes! Yes! To spare my life, yes!”

Thoroughly disgusted now, Tol said nothing. He went to the cell door.

“You are being used, my lord!” Wornoth cried. “The emperor’s hand has guided you to the very course you’re now on! If you go to Daltigoth, you shall be destroyed!”

Tol ignored this feeble gambit, but Egrin lingered.

“Why would the emperor want Lord Tolandruth to come to Daltigoth?” he asked.

An ember of hope lit the prisoner’s eyes. “Spare me, and I’ll tell you!”

“Tell us, and we may spare you,” Tol countered.

Wornoth got quickly to his feet. “You have something the emperor wants.” He glanced at Egrin, uncertain how much to reveal. “A certain item of great value, which protects you.”

Egrin looked blank, but the words rattled Tol. The nullstone. How could Ackal V have learned of it?

The worry on his captor’s face warmed Wornoth like a draft of strong wine. He dried his face on his sleeve and fingered the long hair back from his forehead.

“The empress hired a tracker to find you, my lord. A half-breed woman. To ensure her loyalty, I was ordered to hold her father.”

“I know. She’s dead,” Tol said flatly. “And so is her father.”

Wornoth shrugged. “No matter. You’re on your way to Daltigoth, unwittingly delivering the very prize the emperor covets.” He leered at the warriors. “He dangles tasty bait before you, I know. The empress —”

Tol crossed the distance between them in three strides and seized the front of Wornoth’s robe. Hauling the shorter man to his tiptoes, he snarled, “Your information is worthless! Baited or not, I am going to Daltigoth to see justice done!”

“Justice for whom?” Wornoth rasped. “You – or the empire?”

“Enough!” Tol shoved him away. “Your trial takes place tomorrow.”

Wornoth had one last hand to play. From the folds of his robe, he produced a small iron key. He tossed it toward the doorway, where it landed at Tol’s feet.

“A gift, my lord! That key opens my private archive. Learn for yourself how the emperor draws you to him like a fly into a spider’s web.” Wornoth managed a smile. “What does this buy me?”

Tol’s dagger thudded into the straw by Wornoth’s feet.

“If I were you, Wornoth, I would not wait for a trial. Hanging is tricky business. If not done right, the condemned strangles slowly.” With visible relish, Tol said, “Count five ribs down on your left side. That’s where your heart is – that’s where it is on a normal man, anyway.”

High-born Ergothians had a horror of being hanged like a common criminal. Mockingly, Tol added, “I doubt you have the will to cheat the hangman, but I give you the chance.”

He and Egrin went out, and the sound of the bolt being thrown echoed in the cell.

When the warder arrived a short time later with the prisoner’s supper, he found Wornoth dead. A war dagger protruded from his left side.

His heart was in the right place after all.

*

At the head of her private army, Syndic Hanira awaited Lord Tolandruth’s review. She’d found a magnificent horse in Caergoth, a night-black steed. Mounted on its back, Hanira, in cloth-of-gold raiment, her own black hair streaming loose to her waist, cut a dazzling figure. Dusk was an unusual time to begin a journey, but it was the time Hanira had chosen.

Most of the warlords still mistrusted the Tarsans, regarding them as foreigners and enemies, not valuable allies. None had turned out for her departure. Egrin had taken Wornoth’s key and gone in search of his papers, so only the Dom-shu sisters and Tol were present. Tol was mounted, the sisters on foot.

“Give my regards to Lord Regobart,” Tol said, naming the commander of the imperial outpost near Tarsis.

“I will convey your greetings.” Smiling slightly she added, “I seldom see him, you know. I make him nervous.”

“Small wonder,” Kiya muttered.

Hanira urged her horse forward a few paces, until she was close alongside Tol. Her smooth expression altered for a moment. “Beware, my lord,” she murmured. “You are galloping hard to a precipice. Daltigoth is a maelstrom from which you may not emerge alive.”

She was the second person this evening to tell him that. Shrugging, he said, “I’ve managed to escape death there before.”

Hanira clasped his arm, warrior-fashion. “Live, my lord. The world needs you.”

At Captain Anovenax’s order, the Tarsans wheeled left and trotted away. Hanira turned her ebony steed smartly on its hind legs and cantered after them.

The Dom-shu were not impressed, muttering aloud that the Tarsan syndic was a “conniving wench,” among other things.

“She seeks some advantage,” Miya insisted. She knew the art of dealing better than anyone. “If you succeed, her position as your friend and ally is stronger than ever.”

“But what does she want?” Kiya mused. “Not Husband as mate, I’d wager.”

Miya shook her head. “She wants to rule Tarsis, that’s what I think. With Husband’s help, she could get rid of all the princes and syndics, and reign as queen of Tarsis.”

“You two are so wise!” Tol snapped. “Hanira didn’t have to come to our aid. She paid for her good deed with her own child’s life!”

Chastened, the Dom-shu sisters apologized and left him. He had given them the task of organizing supplies for the ride to Daltigoth.

As the dust kicked up by the Tarsan cavalry settled, Tol stared southwest – the route they’d taken along the banks of the Caer. In the distance, lightning shimmered across the deep purple sky.

The sisters had unknowingly touched a sore spot. Tol wasn’t certain they were wrong about Hanira. But at that moment, he felt she had as much chance of becoming Queen of the Red Moon as Queen of Tarsis.

*

Valaran held the tiny slip of parchment to the lamp flame. It curled and blackened as fire consumed it. She had read the message three times just to be certain she’d not imagined it.

Tol was coming.

She’d managed to place a spy close to him, and now knew even what road he would take. The fear that had been her constant companion for so long faded somewhat. For the first time in a very long time, Valaran allowed herself the luxury of wondering what he was like, whether he’d changed.

Almost seven years had passed. In that time she’d borne a child, learned to govern an empire, and survived the cruel machinations of her unpredictable husband. And she had killed an old woman.

In spite of her room’s warmth, Valaran shivered. She’d learned much in seven years. What had Tol learned?

*

Wornoth’s opulent quarters had been ransacked by servants and palace guards when the city fell. Fine tapestries had been torn down. Furniture too heavy to move had been chopped apart by swords and axes. What remained of Wornoth’s personal treasure had been stored in the dungeon below, for safekeeping, but random coins were scattered across the ruined, dark blue carpet like a rain of gold. Egrin was disgusted as much by the waste as by the unseemly extravagance of the governor’s rooms.

Searching through the destruction, he found several strongboxes, broken open and empty. The iron key fit none of them. Not until Egrin reached Wornoth’s bedroom did he find what he sought.

The bedchamber had received the same treatment as the rest of the rooms. The white walls had been stripped of tapestries and paintings, the furniture hacked by sabers, the broad mattress cut to ribbons. Heavy sculptures had been toppled and lay in pieces amidst shredded blue silk bed curtains. Eiderdown stuffing covered the floor and clouds of fluff swirled upward, disturbed by Egrin’s passage.

His toes bumped something solid as he reached the great bed. Egrin knelt and carefully brushed away an eiderdown drift. In the center of the wooden bedrail, he found a small slot, rimmed in black iron and hard to spot. The key fit perfectly. A click, and a drawer slid smoothly out.

The secret cache held no gold or silver, but bundles of parchment tied with string and a thick-bladed short sword. Egrin opened one of the bundles and discovered a series of dispatches from the emperor to Governor Wornoth. The last few messages were terse and to the point: Where was Tol? Was he coming to Caergoth? What had Wornoth done to defend the city?

Egrin dug deeper into the bundle. The earlier communications were much longer and wilder, sounding like the ramblings of a deranged man. In them, Ackal V railed about treachery, particularly from wizards of the Red and White orders. The emperor insisted over and over to Wornoth that, above all other tasks, he was to keep an eye on the members of those orders in Caergoth.

The next discovery was much more upsetting – a packet of messages to Wornoth from various warlords. These outlined the warlords’ struggles against the nomads and the bakali and requested that the governor send troops and supplies. As time passed and Wornoth sent neither, the requests became demands, then pleas. One dispatch from Bessian was literally spattered with blood. The invaders were closing in, it said, and the Ergothians could neither win nor escape; the governor must send aid. The governor of Caergoth, determined to defend his own neck, had done nothing to aid the dying hordes. This bundle contained no copies of outgoing missives. Wornoth had not even bothered to reply.

Coldly furious, Egrin put the pleading messages aside. The smallest bundle in the cache was not merely tied with string but also wrapped in a scrap of cloth. Egrin reached for this packet of letters, but it slipped through his fingers. He tried again. And again. And again. He glared at the bundle in perplexed confusion. No matter how hard he tried, he could not grab hold of it.

When Tol arrived moments later, Egrin told him of the strange small packet.

“I seem to have butter on my fingers. Can’t pick this up!” the former marshal said, pointing.

Tol squatted by the open drawer. He reached for the packet. Although a flicker of heat played over his fingers, they closed infallibly on the letters. The sensation of warmth was familiar. Someone had put a spell on the letters, most likely to prevent them being tampered with, but the nullstone had negated the spell.

He handed the small packet to Egrin, who held it warily. This time it stayed in his grasp. The elder warrior muttered something about being old and clumsy.

“Rubbish, you’re just tired,” Tol said.

The cloth wrapping contained a dozen or so squares of thin parchment. The backs of the slips were scorched by heat, but lines of writing in unusual brown ink filled the other side. None of the messages was signed.

“Letters from spies,” Egrin said.

The messages all were short, and most were demands for information from an anonymous correspondent. None concerned the nomads or bakali invaders. Some asked about the morale and loyalty of the imperial hordes in Caergoth and commented on the danger of sending troops beyond the walls and leaving the city “helpless and unguarded.” Most sought knowledge of Tol’s whereabouts; Helbin, too, was mentioned.

I’ve had no word from Helbin in many days, the anonymous correspondent had written. If he comes into your hands, let me know at once. Protect him. He is a valuable ally.

“Didn’t Queen Casberry say Helbin had been captured by Wornoth’s guards?” asked Egrin.

Tol nodded absently. They had looked all over for the Red Robe. There had been no trace of the wizard among the prisoners, either in the citadel or anywhere else.

“These messages are in Valaran’s hand!” Tol exclaimed. Egrin’s graying eyebrows lifted in surprise and Tol added, “Don’t you see? Wornoth was playing both sides. He was spying for the empress, while ruling in the emperor’s name.” The duplicity of the man was incredible.

“Then why would he arrest Helbin? He knew they both served the same mistress.”

Tol shrugged. “Maybe Wornoth was duping Valaran, betraying her trust to Ackal V. If so, the last thing he’d want around would be a loyal servant of the empress.” Tol tossed the letters back in the drawer. “Helbin could tell us more. He’s probably dead, but continue the search for him anyway.”

He left Egrin to finish examining Wornoth’s secret papers. Queen Casberry was departing, and Tol wanted to see her off.

Egrin waited until his friend and commander had gone, then picked up certain of the bundles again, riffled through them, and extracted a sheaf or two. These he burned in the flame of his lamp, watching the doorway all the while.

*

Tol, Casberry, and her bearers were just inside the north gate of Caergoth. Evening had come and Luin was rising, casting its pinkish light over the open landscape.

Tol asked the kender queen about her escort and received the breezy assurance that both Royal Loyals and Household Guard were “around somewhere.” She had already turned down his offer of an armed escort, saying she might not be heading directly home. Kender were afflicted with wanderlust, and the queen was the most kenderish of them all.

Front and Back hoisted the heavy sedan chair onto their shoulders, seemingly without effort. As usual, Queen Casberry offered a steady stream of advice to the duo on the best way to carry the chair and, as usual, the men ignored her. Tol smiled. They were certainly an odd threesome.

When he thanked her again for her assistance, she patted him on the head. “You’re a good fellow, for a human.” Putting her little prune face close to his head, she added, “You’re getting a bald spot up here, you know that?”

Tol cleared his throat and stepped back. He was past forty now, and it was true. Age was beginning to tell on him in many ways.

“Okay, boys, pick up your feet!” she said, and Front and Back headed for the open gate.

“Oh, your Majesty!” Tol called. “Where should I send the payment you were promised for your troops?”

Casberry lifted both arms and waved. Her arms, from wrist to elbow, were covered with gold and silver bangles.

“Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of that!” she said, cackling.

The little party seemed so lonely, so vulnerable, Tol found himself following them out. The bearers kept to the center of the white-pebbled road, which curved away to the northwest. Before Casberry had gone a quarter-league, however, small shadowy figures joined her out of the darkness. Kender. More and more appeared as she progressed, falling in behind their clever, rapacious queen.

The cryptic phrase Casberry used so often – “no kender is ever alone” – was, Tol knew, true enough. He also knew the treasure recovered from the nomads was by now somewhat diminished. It didn’t matter. The kender had earned their “found” valuables.

Tol walked back into the city, and the guards closed the gate. He rode through the darkening streets, now empty of the crowds of refugees. Trash blew along the wide lanes, last reminders of the thousands who had crowded into Caergoth to escape the chaos outside. On their own initiative, a brigade of street sweepers had organized to clean the city. Before long Caergoth would once more be a byword for cleanliness in the empire.

Daltigoth lay forty leagues southwest, a ride of five or six days on the Ackal Path. Daltigoth was his journey’s end. All Tol’s goals were there, he reflected, with Valaran his prize. So wrapped up was he in thoughts of his distant love, that Tol didn’t notice a caped figure emerge from an alley as he passed. But after a few paces, he said (without turning around), “Did you find her, Tylocost?”

The elf chuckled. “Your senses aren’t bad for a human, my lord.”

“Your sandals creak.”

Tol had dispatched Tylocost to find the Pakin princess, Mellamy Zan, reported by Hanira to be in Caergoth.

“I found her,” Tylocost said, putting back his hood. “I believe she will accept my protection. Her advisors were against it, but she overruled them. She seems remarkably intelligent and accomplished – for a human.”

“Remember where your allegiance lies, General.”

With irritating Silvanesti aplomb, Tylocost inclined his head gracefully. “I remember, my lord.”

Tol offered his hand. As Tylocost clasped it, Tol said, “Thank you. And now you’re free, General. You are no longer my prisoner.”

Tylocost’s eyes widened. “But so much remains to be done!”

“I know, but I also know that I may not return from this last ride. You’ve done amazingly well by me, and I’m grateful, so I give you your freedom.” But he tightened his grip until Tylocost winced. “That does not excuse you from the duty I expect you to perform.”

“Of course not. I would wish you luck, my lord, but you seem plentifully supplied already, so I’ll give you a warning instead: be certain of nothing.” Pale blue eyes bored into Tol’s brown ones. “You stand in the center of events so complex and loyalties so tangled that even I cannot see all the threads. Make certain your will is as hard as that steel blade you carry, and trust no one.”

Smiling a little, Tol asked, “Not even you, General?”

The elf’s expression was grim. “Not even I.”

Before Tol could say more, Tylocost was gone, melting into the darkness. Instinct told him he would never see the Silvanesti again.

It was very late when Tol retired to his room in the Riders’ Hall, but hardly had he lain down when someone slipped into the room.

“Peace,” said the figure, and he recognized Kiya’s voice. “I wish to sleep here tonight.” ¦

He was dumbfounded. Not in twenty-odd years together had they ever been so intimate, despite Kiya’s status as his wife.

He stuttered rather incoherently for a moment and she hissed, “I’ve not come to seduce you! My father snores so loudly, I can’t sleep in the room he shares with his men. Move over, Husband.”

He complied, but felt oddly shy. Kiya lay down with her back to him and muttered, “Don’t get any strange ideas.” There seemed no safe answer to that, affirmative or negative, so Tol said nothing.

He was just dozing off when someone else entered the room. “Husband, I – Kiya! What are you doing here?” Miya demanded.

“Trying to sleep! Shut up!”

“Both of you shut up,” Tol growled. He was exhausted, and in no mood for sisterly wrangling.

Miya elbowed her way in next to Kiya. “You think I can sleep with Father’s snoring? And I’m certainly not leaving you two here alone.” Kiya told her she had too much imagination.

With the two tall forester women in the bed, there was scarcely room for Tol. He slid off onto the flagstone floor. While the sisters sniped at each other, he claimed a blanket and curled up beneath it.

Twenty years together, and now his wives wanted to sleep with him. The prospect was so daunting he vowed to get the final drive to Daltigoth underway as soon as possible.

*

The day dawned cloud-capped and windy. Before sunrise, the Army of the East marched out of Caergoth and formed on the great road to the capital – the Ackal Path. Virtually every Rider in the city had joined Tol, giving him a total strength of forty-four full hordes, six demi-hordes, and the two hordes of Juramona Militia, the only foot soldiers in the Army. There was great disaffection among the imperial warriors for their poor treatment by the emperor and the emperor’s deputy, Governor Lord Wornoth. The proud Riders were ready to march on Daltigoth and present their grievances to Ackal V in the most direct manner possible – at sword point.

Even so, it was a tenuous coalition, held together by anger and injured pride. The Riders of Caergoth and the provincial Riders of the landed hordes would fight if contested, but privately Tol wondered how they would respond if the emperor sought to appease them. That didn’t seem likely. Ackal V was clever, but he was not the sort to placate anyone, even with a sword at his throat.

The first rays of sunlight had just touched the tops of the city wall when the last men fell in place. Each horde commander rode out to meet Tol, who waited in the center of the road on a new mount. The Riders’ stables had yielded up a fine dappled gray war-horse.

Tol greeted the horde commanders by name and assigned them their places in the march. Two wings of twenty hordes each would ride west, each wing flanking the imperial highway. The bulk of the army, and the baggage train, would proceed on the road.

“If we are challenged, do we fight, my lord?” Lord Wagram asked.

“We’re not going to Daltigoth to attend a festival!”

There was much smothered laughter at Zanpolo’s quip. The legendary warlord was mounted on a large horse as black as its rider’s forked beard.

Wagram reddened, demanding, “Do we attack imperial troops on sight then?”

This was a legitimate question, one Tol had long been considering. “No, my lord. If any hordes confront you, try to parley and convince them to join us. If they spurn your advances, ride on. If you’re attacked, fight back. But don’t start battles yourselves. Our quarrel is with Ackal V, not every Rider in the Great Horde.”

Another of the Caergoth warlords, Quevalen by name, asked, “What exactly is our quarrel, my lord? Wornoth has paid for his perfidy. Are we to depose the emperor, or merely seek redress for our many grievances?”

Tol wouldn’t impose his private vengeance on every man in his service, but neither would he deceive them.

“Ackal V seized power illegally from Prince Hatonar, his brother’s heir,” he said. “And I have evidence he was behind the illness and death of his brother, Ackal IV.”

He sought the eye of every warlord before him. “We seek the ouster of Ackal V and the restoration of the imperial throne to the rightful heirs of Pakin III and Ackal IV. The new emperor will see to it our grievances are heard.” Again, he stared at each of them, slowly turning in his saddle. “If anyone here cannot accept this, let him depart now without blame.”

There was restive movement, especially among the younger officers, but none broke ranks.

“Remember, my lords, no one here is a rebel. We do not seek to overthrow the empire. We mean to save it!”

He put heels to his war-horse’s sides and set out at a trot. Egrin and Pagas came close after, then the warlords of the landed hordes – Argonnel, Mittigorn, Trudo, and the rest. Soon the whole army was in motion. The noise of massed hoofbeats was thunderous.

In the rear, at the head of the baggage caravan, Kiya slapped the reins against the backs of her four-horse team, setting the animals into motion. Miya, sitting next to her on the wagon seat, finished tying a scarf over her head and signaled to the teamsters to follow.

“Can he do it?” Miya asked.

Kiya squinted against the rising dust. “Husband is doing it.”

Chapter 24

CHANCE’S CHOICE

The Army of the East rode ready for combat, but the first two days of the journey passed without hostility. The countryside, which had been emptied of people by the parallel invasions of bakali and nomads, had sprung to life again. As Tol’s army passed out of the Caer Hundred into the Heartland Hundred, strange things began to happen.

Ordinary folk, who normally wouldn’t have come within a league of an armed horde, turned out by the hundreds. Word spread that Lord Tolandruth was leading the hordes to Daltigoth to set things right, so cautious observers left their hiding places and came forward to cheer. Nor did they come with empty hands.

The bountiful countryside between Caergoth and the capital had not been ravaged in the recent invasions. No nomads had made it this far west, and the bakali had passed far to the north. With high summer upon the land, the fertile heart of the empire was bursting with plenty. Even the drought that gripped the Eastern Hundred had not affected crops here. The peasants brought fruits, vegetables, and smoked meats. Before long, Riders were festooned with bags of grapes, onions, melons, and carrots, and even several live chickens, their feet lashed together.

Kiya and Miya, having gotten the baggage caravan started, left it to join Tol at the head of the central column. A farmer’s wife rushed up to Miya, shoved an enormous ham into her arms, and hurried away, all without a word. While the Dom-shu sisters were amused by the joyous reception, Tol found it unsettling.

Miya, staggering along with the ham, said, “They’re happy, Husband! They know what you’re going to do!”

Egrin remained dour. “If we fail, the results could be grave for those known to have given us aid.”

As it developed, there were other, more immediate considerations. Gifts of beer and wine began to arrive, and the Army of the East grew merry indeed. Lord Argonnel cantered over from the right wing, where similar conditions prevailed.

“My lord, this must stop!” he said. “Discipline is failing. If the emperor attacked now, our men would flounder under an ocean of foodstuffs!”

“But the people love us!” Miya replied. “And it’s for them you’re doing this, Husband!”

Argonnel was right, but Miya had a point as well. How could they extricate themselves from the flood of well-meant gifts without alienating the good people of Ergoth?

It was Kiya who showed the way. Two children approached her, each bearing pots of berry jam. Even the tough warrior woman couldn’t bear to wound them by refusing, but her hands were already full. Exasperated, she held out a bag of grapes.

“I can’t take anything unless you take something in return!” she declared.

Laughing, Tol made Kiya’s frustrated bargain a general order. No one in the army was to accept another gift without giving something back. He also ordered the pace of the hordes quickened. This would make it harder for the peasants to reach the warriors.

By the third day – halfway along in the journey to Daltigoth – the bounty of food and drink had greatly subsided. Near the border of the Great Horde Hundred, in which the capital lay, it ceased altogether. The farmers were no less glad to see the Army of the East, but the influence of Ackal V’s spies was greater. The first scouts were seen, watching Tol’s hordes advance through the lush orchards and verdant pastures east of Daltigoth. Riders from Zanpolo’s Iron Falcons tried to flush out them out but failed to catch them. The spies were mounted on fleet, carefully chosen horses, and they knew the countryside well. Tol took Zanpolo’s failure in stride.

“If you can capture a scout, fine, but if not …” Tol shrugged. “We want everyone in Daltigoth to know we’re coming. The time is fast approaching when all must choose – as you did, Zanpolo – whether to be with us or against us.”

The first clash came soon after.

At the intersection of the Ackal Path and the Mordirin Way was a customs house. Here, imperial officials levied tolls on caravans passing east or west, and north or south. Comprising a stout stone building and a wooden tower enclosed in a stockade faced with sloping walls of earth, the customs house seemed an unlikely spot for a showdown. But as Riders from Mittigorn’s Black Viper Horde approached, a shower of arrows greeted them.

Mittigorn sent word back to Tol, then dismounted sixty men and proceeded to attack. After storming the grassy scarp, the Vipers fell upon the occupants of the stockade. Much to their surprise, they discovered their opponents were not imperial warriors, but ordinary footmen armed with bows. Twenty-two bowmen and the customs officer constituted the entire garrison.

Tol arrived with his warlords and the Dom-shu sisters. The captured bowmen were sitting quietly on the ground, hands clasped atop their heads. Not so the customs officer. He was stretched out facedown, wrists lashed together behind his back, held at sword point. Both face and fists bore the bloody evidence of his resistance.

Ignoring the fuming customs officer for now, Tol addressed the leader of the bowmen, a man with a city haircut and light sandals on his feet. “You, stand up. What’s your name?”

“Fengale, my lord.” He spoke like a city man – pronouncing “my lord” as “ma ludd.”

“Why are you here, Fengale?”

The sergeant shrugged. “One of the emperor’s chamberlains hired us to defend this post. We arrived here only last night.”

Kiya wondered why Ackal V would deploy hired soldiers when he had plenty of warriors at his command, but this was no mystery to Tol. The emperor had withdrawn all his hordes, concentrating his warriors closer to the city. What Tol couldn’t fathom was why Ackal V had bothered to defend the customs house at all.

He turned his attention to the customs officer. Two warriors dragged the fellow forward. He fought and cursed the whole way.

“Traitor! Rebel! Your head will feed the crows for this!”

Tol waved a hand. “Yes, yes. Who are you?”

The officer couldn’t break the grips of the burly Riders holding him, so he settled for stating loudly, “My name is Hathak. Captain Hathak, of the Imperial Customs Service!”

“Well, Captain Hathak, what’s so special about your house?”

The petty official made a great show of not understanding, and Tol added, “We aren’t fools, Captain. There has to be a reason the emperor wastes even a small number of troops defending a solitary customs house.” To Mittigorn he said, “Have the house searched thoroughly.”

Mittigorn’s men carried out the order enthusiastically. Partitions were torn apart, floorboards pried up, and soon enough a shout of triumph rang out.

Two chests of gold coins (ironically stamped with the profile of Ackal V’s revered father, Pakin III) were found secreted under the floor of the house. In the rafters the men found sheaves of spears, bundles of shields, and sabers. All the metal implements had been dipped in wax to keep away rust, and all bore the stamp of the imperial arsenal in Daltigoth. Some were of recent make, others were older weapons.

Tol studied the cache carefully, all the while wondering why the weapons had been secreted here. A commotion outside interrupted him, and Miya appeared in the customs house door.

“You’d better come!” she said gravely.

Outside, they found Kiya standing over Hathak, once more facedown on the ground. The Dom-shu woman had her sword out and was glaring at several Riders standing nearby.

“They started beating him to make him talk,” she reported. “I put an end to it!”

Tol looked to Mittigorn and the warlord, still mounted, shrugged. “One way or another we have to find out what he knows, my lord,” he said.

Tol looked from the bloody, bound prisoner to Kiya’s proud, angry face. Distasteful though it was, he asked Mittigorn, “What did you learn?”

“Not much. We were interrupted,” Mittigorn said dryly.

Hathak had revealed that the gold was from tolls collected over the past half-year. The arms had been delivered to the customs house and hidden before the hired bowmen arrived from the city.

Tol gnawed his lower lip. He needed every bit of information he could lay hands on.

“Take Hathak inside,” he said to the waiting warriors. As they hoisted the fallen man up, Tol said to Mittigorn, “Find out what he knows.”

Miya gasped. Kiya grabbed his arm and demanded, “You’re going to let them torture that man?”

He broke her hold and seized her wrist. “Do you think this is a game?” he asked harshly. “We’re not fighting nomads any more. The emperor would not place money and weapons at a lonely outpost for no reason. I have to know why he did it!”

Like most foresters, Kiya would gladly fight and kill any opponent who challenged her, but the idea of beating information out of a helpless captive made her furious.

“If you do this, you’re no better than him!”

Kiya jerked her arm free. She swung onto her horse and galloped off, not back to the column, but westward, away from the poised army. Tossing an anguished glance at Tol, Miya followed her sister.

Tol stalked back to his own horse, his entire body radiating anger. He told Lord Mittigorn to seek him out once they had the truth from the customs official.

The commander of the Black Viper Horde acknowledged the order. He was unmoved by the drama with the Dom-shu sisters. He didn’t expect women (and barbarian women at that) to understand a warrior’s duty. However, his equanimity was shaken when Tol ordered him to disarm and release the bowmen.

Dark eyes widening, he asked, “Is that wise, my lord?”

“They’re only hirelings. We don’t have time for prisoners, so take their bows and turn them loose. That’s an order!”

Mittigorn snapped to attention in his saddle. “Yes, my lord.”

Tol cantered back to the waiting column. The sky, which had been an unblemished blue all day, was clear no longer. On the northern and southern horizons white clouds were piling up.

*

When Miya lost sight of her sister around a bend in the road, she urged her mare into a canter. Bands of light and shadow flickered across the Dom-shu woman’s face as she rode along the cedar-lined road. The air was hot and still; only the wind stirred by her passage made it bearable.

Rounding the curve in the road, she saw that Kiya had stopped where the lines of trees ended. The road there sloped downward, running straight and true into a breathtaking vista of green pastures and arrow-straight rows of fruit trees. An equestrian statue by the road marked the border of the Great Horde Hundred, the exact center of the Ergoth Empire.

Miya drew alongside her fuming sister. Neither of them spoke, they merely stared out at the bountiful countryside spread before them. Kiya’s hair had come free of its confining thong and fanned out over her shoulders. As a child, Miya had been jealous of her sister’s blonde locks, thinking the color much prettier than her own. Now, the sight of her sister’s unbound hair suddenly reminded Miya of the white burial shrouds used by high-born Ergothians. She shook her head, dislodging the thought.

“Husband didn’t have much choice,” Miya finally said. “The tax collector is a coward, anyway. He’ll probably talk if they only threaten him with violence —”

“Do you see them?” Kiya whispered in a strange voice.

“See what?”

“The clouds, Miya. Look at the clouds. Do you see the faces?”

Miya shaded her eyes, obediently studying the sky. Towering over the valley below were great masses of clouds, their bottoms flat as marble tiles. They were intensely white in the glare of the summer sun. Clouds and valley formed a vast panorama unknown in the close confines of their forest home. Beautiful in its own way, Miya admitted, but she didn’t see any faces.

Miya said, “All I see are clouds, Sister.”

Kiya frowned. As before, at the Isle of Elms, she saw rows of people, their faces without expression, staring down at her. She was not given to seeing portents and omens around every corner. That she was seeing this, and Miya was not, must be significant. The silent watchers must be a warning.

The sound of voices behind them brought their attention earthward again. The Army of the East was approaching. Many Riders were pointing at the sky and exclaiming/

Tol and Egrin, leading the central column, cantered up to the Dom-shu women. As they arrived, Egrin’s gaze strayed to the clouds and he jerked his mount’s reins. “Draco Paladin preserve us!” he whispered. “Who are they?”

As it transpired, about half the army could see the vision. The other half saw only clouds. Tol saw nothing but summer thunderheads. He asked Kiya and Egrin what the cloud-people were doing.

“Nothing, they just —” Kiya shrugged. “They just gaze at us.”

The faces, she told him, were distinct but without detail, like simple representations molded in clay. Their expressions seemed frozen and did not change.

Although unable to see the apparitions, Tol could certainly see how the aerial spectacle affected his friends. Their awe was disconcerting. He didn’t fear magic himself, not as long as he had the millstone, but bitter experience had taught him spells could have a severe effect on those around him.

“It could be a warning,” Miya said, unconsciously echoing Kiya’s earlier thought.

To break through the army’s immobility, Tol resorted to his loudest battlefield voice.

“All right, men! If you’re through gawking, let’s ride on! Close ranks!” he boomed. “Form up, I said!”

Egrin and Kiya shook off their wonderment and the column set out. Heralds galloped out to the flanking hordes to urge them into motion as well.

“It must be a trick,” Egrin insisted, chagrined at the effect the vision had on him. “There are plenty of wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery willing to do the emperor’s bidding.”

The explanation was a sensible one, but Kiya was not convinced. For the first time she recounted the similar vision she’d had at the Isle of Elms.

Tol was intrigued, but before he could question her further an all-too-familiar hum filled the air. A wave of arrows clattered onto the road in front of them.

“Ambush!” Miya cried, as her horse reared in fright.

“Forward the vanguard!” shouted Tol. The front ranks of the militia jogged forward, shields upraised. They flowed around the four riders as a fresh shower of arrows arrived.

Tol sent Egrin back to bring Lord Pagas’s Riders forward. As the old warrior galloped away, Tol and the Dom-shu sisters dismounted.

“There! The arrows came from there!” Kiya shouted, pointing ahead to a drainage ditch on the left side of the road.

Tol tossed his reins to Miya and drew Number Six. Kiya likewise gave her mount over to Miya.

The foot soldiers gathered around the younger Dom-shu and the horses, spreading out to cover the shoulders of the road as a third and fourth volley hissed overhead. A few men, careless with their shields, went down with arrows in their necks or shoulders.

Shields raised, the Juramona Militia followed Tol and Kiya off the road toward the unseen archers. The Ackal Path was built on an earthen causeway, some two paces above the surrounding farmland, and the soldiers skidded down the mossy slope. Behind them, the rest of the militia advanced straight down the road.

Tol estimated they faced about a hundred bowmen. He had five hundred men in the vanguard. Through the line of shields ahead of him, Tol glimpsed the archers as they peered over the top of the drainage ditch. At his order, his men lowered spears and charged down the embankment. Reaching the rim of the ditch, they pulled up short, astonished by what their eyes beheld.

There were indeed one hundred bowmen in the ditch. But behind them, concealed by a thick line of berry bushes, were imperial Riders, several thousand in all. Gasping, Kiya uttered a single pungent curse. Tol couldn’t improve on it.

The vanguard attacked the archers, and a brisk battle ensued. When the rest of the militia reached the crest of the road and saw the hidden hordes, they immediately halted and took up defensive squares across the Ackal Path, calmly sorting themselves into formation.

The lightly armed archers broke off the unequal struggle in the ditch, and fled. Tol withdrew his vanguard, keeping the gully between his men and the poised hordes. As he was pulling back, two of the hordes charged the militia on the road.

The sight of the bellowing Riders, thundering forward on massive war-horses, was guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of men on foot, but the charging hordes had never before faced foot soldiers trained by Tol. Certainly the Juramona Militia felt fear, but they stood their ground.

The hordes smashed into the foremost square, almost sweeping it away in one go. Plunging horses bowled over the men on foot, despite the walls of spear points they presented. The rear face of the square, unengaged, wheeled around and reinforced their comrades. Blood flowed on the Ackal Path, and Tol quick-marched the vanguard to support their comrades. Using tactics he’d invented long ago, his soldiers slung their shields on their backs, gripped their spears in both hands, and raced headlong at the engaged horsemen. Footmen weren’t expected to attack riders, but the Juramonans knew how. As they attacked, they shouted the most famous battle cry in Ergoth.

“Juramona! Juramona!”

The Riders trapped between the militia squares and Tol’s charging vanguard broke off fighting and rode out of reach.

The Juramonans barely had time to draw breath before two fresh hordes bore down on them. Hastily they formed a new square four ranks deep. The Riders trotted along the outside of the square, hacking the spearheads jabbing at them. Fighting was at arm’s length as the Riders surged around the militia, but once they realized the Juramonans wouldn’t be easily broken, the hordes withdrew a short distance to rethink their strategy.

Around him, Tol heard the labored breathing of his men. Kiya had sheathed her sword and taken up a spear from a fallen soldier. She wiped blood (not her own) from her hands so she could better grip the spear. Again there was little time to rest before battle was renewed.

From between the reformed ranks of mounted men bowmen emerged – seven hundred of them. The enemy’s plan was easy to discern: unable to force open the dogged militia squares, the imperial commander would use archers to thin the Juramonan ranks until his Riders could smash through.

The first arrows were falling when trumpets sounded on both sides of the Ackal Path. Tol recognized the calls. One was from Zanpolo, with the left wing of the army. The other came from Pagas and the horsemen attached to Tol’s center column.

The ground shook with the thunder of galloping horses. Zanpolo’s twenty hordes met the imperial Riders in a cherry orchard, and a furious cavalry fight erupted on Tol’s left. Rank upon rank joined the fray. Tol guessed the number facing Zanpolo at ten hordes. The emperor was reckoned to have ninety more hordes at his disposal, better than twice the size of Tol’s army. So where were the rest?

The militiaman beside Tol fell dead, an arrow in his eye. Tol put Number Six away and snatched up the dead man’s spear and shield. He couldn’t see Miya anywhere, but spotted Kiya’s long blonde hair streaming below her helmet. Shouldering in beside the Dom-shu, he rammed his spear over the heads of the soldiers in front of him, impaling an enemy rider through the thigh.

Lord Pagas and his landed hordes joined the fray, hitting the emperor’s men on their left. Pressure on the infantry lessened as Pagas’s Riders swept through the bowmen, cutting them down. Freed of the deadly hail of arrows, Tol ordered his spearmen forward.

Locked together by their overlapping shields, the phalanx ¦ of spearmen lurched into motion. Like some fearful spiny beast, the squares of infantry crept down the road. The hordes hovered but kept their distance.

The causeway descended to ground level, exposing the sides and rear of the militia to charges. At Tol’s order, two blocks of spearmen swung right and left, forming a wedge behind the leading company. When a horde sallied out of the orchards on the south side of the road, the militiamen, moving in unison, whipped their spears around to cover that side. The massed movement was so startling (and menacing) that the imperial force pulled up short. Again and again Riders were thrown by the footmen’s actions. Faced with an attack from elite Riders of the Great Horde, foot soldiers were supposed to run away, or toss down their arms and plead for mercy. The Juramonans did neither.

Pagas re-formed his scattered men. Egrin was with them, the high comb topping his marshal’s helmet rising above the squat, round helmets worn by Riders in the landed hordes. At a walking pace, the Army of the East pushed ahead. Ackal V’s men slowly gave ground, uncertain how to best them.

On the right, the north side of the Ackal Path, a low stone wall marked the boundary of a large pasture. Some of Pagas’s men steered their horses around the obstacle, while others urged their animals to jump over it. Confusion resulted, and before they’d regrouped, three imperial hordes came roaring across the pasture, sabers forward. Frustrated by their abortive fight with Tol’s infantry, the men vented their fury on Pagas’s disordered men.

Tol bawled new orders to the militia. Companies of spearmen halted, ponderously swung to their right, and headed toward the boiling cavalry fight. Arrows sailed in from imperial troops. One skipped off Tol’s helmet, throwing him off balance. Kiya looped an arm through his and kept him on his feet.

Pagas’s horde fractured in half. The tough old warlord whose valiant battle against centaurs had earned him a bashed nose and a high-pitched voice was engulfed by younger, saber-swinging foes. He gave as good as he got for quite a while, but finally too many blades flashed around Pagas, and he pitched from his horse.

Egrin, trapped in the other half of the Plains Panther horde, tried to break through to the fallen warlord. Pagas was trying to rise on hands and knees when imperials closed in and trampled him under in a blur. Immediately the cry went up that Lord Pagas was dead.

Undaunted, Egrin and a wedge of horsemen plunged into the enemy riders, forcing them away from where Pagas lay. Unfortunately, it was soon clear the cries were true: Pagas was slain.

Armor clanking, sweat running down every face, the militia was about to close on the cavalry duel when fresh imperial hordes galloped up behind them. With this new threat at their backs, the Juramonans had no choice but to face about. Tol shouted for the nearest company to attack.

“Egrin!” Kiya shouted.

Her cry brought Tol whirling around in time to see the man who had been like a father to him inundated by enemies. A saber blow sent Egrin’s helmet flying, though the old warrior skewered the Rider who’d landed the blow. Even as he recovered his weapon, however, four more warriors thrust at him. He parried the first attack, the next, and the next – then a saber tip caught Egrin under his sword arm.

From his vantage fewer than thirty paces away, Tol saw the strike clearly. The imperial Rider who’d landed the blow stabbed Egrin again, and the old warrior collapsed sideways off his mount and vanished among the churning horsemen.

Breath caught in Tol’s throat. He felt as though the thrust had pierced his own flesh. He began to shout at the top of his lungs. Later, he would have no memory of what he’d said.

Kiya stared at him in shock. She’d never before heard such language from her normally even-tempered husband.

Tol drove his company forward, but the infantry could not catch the horsemen. The horde that had slain Pagas wheeled before the militia’s rush and rode easily out of reach.

The bodies of the two warlords lay within paces of each other. Pagas lay on his stomach in the trampled grass. He had suffered a score of wounds. Egrin’s only visible wounds were the jab underneath his sword arm and a shallow cut across his throat. After falling from his horse, his great stamina had allowed him to pull himself to a seated position. He was slumped forward, head hanging down. His right hand still gripped his saber.

With the militia encircling him, keeping watch for enemy attack, Tol knelt by Egrin. His hands shook as he dropped his spear and tilted the old marshal’s head up. Hazel eyes blinked at him.

“Egrin!” Tol cried. “Egrin, can you hear me?”

He blinked again, and managed a barely perceptible nod, but he couldn’t rise or speak.

“Husband!” Kiya said urgently. “We need you – the battle goes on!”

Tol gently laid the marshal on his back and stood, positioning himself so his shadow covered Egrin’s face.

“We’ll hold here,” he said, wiping sweat and tears from his grimy cheeks. “We can’t advance without more cavalry support. Ackal’s men would chew us up.”

With trumpet calls, the trailing hordes of Tol’s army were summoned forward. Last to arrive were Mittigorn and Argonnel, hurrying from their position at the customs house. When the full weight of Tol’s forty-four hordes was in place, the imperials began to withdraw.

Miya rode out of the ranks of Zanpolo’s men. Tol took the reins of his gray war-horse from her. He was trembling so with battle rage and exhaustion, he missed the stirrup twice before finally setting his foot in and swinging into the saddle.

“Have the healers see to Lord Egrin,” he said. “There’s a man’s weight in gold for those who save his life!”

He gathered his reins, ready to gallop after the retreating imperials, but Miya took hold of the gray horse’s bridle. “Wait, Husband,” she said. “Let your warlords chase the enemy. You should stay here.”

He yanked his horse’s head to the side, breaking her grip, and snarled, “No! Not enough blood has been shed – not nearly enough!”

Miya was appalled by his bloodthirsty words, and by the ugly emotions that twisted his face. Kiya, mounted as well, steered her smaller plains pony in front of his muscular warhorse, blocking his attempt to ride away. He shouted at her to move, but she refused to budge.

With a hiss of steel, Number Six came free of its scabbard. Tol raised the saber high.

Miya cried out, but Kiya said calmly, “Will you kill me, Husband?”

Crimson shame washed over his face as he lowered the sword. The three of them stood frozen in place as the hordes of Mittigorn and Argonnel swept past in a swirl of dust and pounding hoofbeats.

It was Tol who finally broke the terrible moment. He bowed his head and covered his burning eyes with one hand.

He’d lost comrades on every campaign he’d fought. It was never easy, but the sorrow was lessened by knowing they died well, fighting as honorable warriors. Yet he felt no such comfort in this case. If Egrin died …

Tol shuddered. Egrin was more than his second father. Tol had known his real father for eleven years. He’d known Egrin nearly three decades. Not only had Egrin opened up an entirely different world to Tol and taught him how to be a warrior, the former marshal had showed when it was best not to fight. Egrin had taught him what it meant to be an honorable man.

A strong hand clutched his arm. It was Miya’s. She said his name, and the awed tone of her voice penetrated his grief. He looked up and beheld an amazing scene.

To the west, where the imperial hordes were retreating, clouds were descending onto the battlefield. Tol saw no faces in them, just billowing masses of white vapor sinking to the ground. They filled the open space between the withdrawing imperials and Tol’s pursuing hordes. The green pastures and leafy orchards were slowly swallowed up by a wall of dense mist.

“The emperor’s covering his tracks!” said Kiya.

Wearily, Tol sheathed Number Six. “The battle is over today,” he said. “When the clouds disperse, we’ll resume the march. This was just a skirmish to delay us.”

Miya was incredulous. How could he call today’s bloody encounter a skirmish?

“We faced no more than ten hordes today. Ackal has ninety more. Imagine today’s battle increased ninefold.”

Miya shook her head. She followed as Tol rode back to check on Egrin.

Kiya never noticed them leave. The low-lying cloudbank was staring at her – its contours holding the same implacable faces she had seen before. After a moment the faces dissolved, leaving only featureless fog.

*

Within the Tower of High Sorcery, the assemblage of wizards formed a great circle, hands clasped. As they ended their joint incantation, sighs and groans of exhaustion filled the vast hall. Older mages tottered to benches along the wall and collapsed. Young and old alike flexed fingers grown stiff from a half-day’s concentrated effort.

By projecting their collective consciousness into the air above Lord Tolandruth’s army, the wizards could study its progress. The veil that had formerly cloaked the bakali and nomads was gone. None of them knew why, although there was much speculation. But they had been able to follow Tolandruth’s progress since his defeat of the nomads at the Isle of Elms.

Merkurin, chief scribe of the White Robe order, finished his description of the battle and signed his name to the scroll with his customary flourish. The document, covering Lord Tolandruth’s movements for a single day, was over ten paces long. While his colleagues conjured, an image of what they were seeing appeared in the air over their heads. Merkurin, outside the great circle, wrote down all he saw. The process was exhausting for everyone, and made more so by the distance from which they had to operate.

Merkurin rang a small bell. An acolyte of the Red Robes hurried to him. The chief scribe rolled his report and sealed it. Handing it to the young woman he reminded her, “For His Majesty. No one else is to see it.”

She bowed her head. “Yes, Master Merkurin.” The emperor would soon have his report. Merkurin hoped he knew what to do with it.

Chapter 25

A HERO’S JUSTICE

Drums rolled, echoing off the walls of the Inner City. The imperial Household Guard was drawn up in a hollow square, swords hared. Outside the ring of armed men stood the assembled warlords of the empire – those remaining who were still able to reach Daltigoth at the emperor’s command. They solemnly watched the spectacle unfolding before them. Every window in the palace and Riders’ Hall facing the plaza was filled with spectators.

Within the square of guardsmen nine men stood in a line. Warlords all, the nine were bereft of arms and armor, clad in ordinary trews and linen shirts, the garb of condemned men. Their hair and beards had been shorn away.

Also within the square was Ackal V, seated on his golden throne. Prince Dalar stood by his right hand. The heir to the throne wore his own suit of armor, cuirass and helmet wrought in thin, brightly polished brass.

The condemned men were the commanders of the hordes who had been ordered to stop Tol’s advance on the capital. Their leader, General Meeka of the Golden Ram Horde, had protested that he had not had sufficient men to stop Lord Tolandruth, well known as an accomplished strategist. His use of Tol’s old title had cost Meeka his life, and insured the emperor’s rage against his subordinates. Meeka was beheaded forthwith, and his horde commanders likewise now faced the emperor’s wrath.

“You have been found guilty of cowardice,” Ackal V declared. “By law and custom set down by my glorious ancestors, you should all be executed, and your property forfeited to the empire!” He paused for effect. “But I am disposed to be lenient. Only two of you shall die. I leave it to you to choose who shall lose their heads.”

The nine neither spoke nor moved. Their eyes remained fixed forward, staring beyond their angry liege.

Ackal V flushed. “Choose two, or all will die!” he shouted.

The warrior at the right end of the line, a cousin of the Tumult and Dermount clans, stepped forward. “I will die to spare my comrades, Majesty,” he announced.

Immediately, the man next to him stepped forward, saying, “So shall I!”

In turn, each of the others took the fatal step toward the emperor.

Ackal V leaned to the right, murmuring, “You see, Dalar, what I must work with? They fight poorly, disobey me, then offer their necks out of pride. What can I do?” He sighed loudly and sat back. “Very well. Your emperor grants your final wish. Kill them all.”

The warlords outside the ring of guards stirred, shouting, “No!” and “Spare them!”

Ackal V glared at the assembly. “The Inner City wall has room for many heads!” he said loudly.

Dalar flinched at his father’s injustice, but for once the warlords did not. New cries went up: “Shame!” and “Where is honor?” The plaza reverberated with the noise.

Nonetheless, the emperor jerked his head, and his executioner strode toward the waiting prisoners. The swordsman’s bare chest rippled with muscle as he lifted his weapon high.

Without hesitation, the Dermount cousin went down on his knees. The two-handed blade severed his neck in one stroke. In spite of the outraged shouts from the assembled warlords, the next prisoner knelt immediately, and was dispatched with equal swiftness. The executioner traveled efficiently down the line, until all nine men were dead. Their blood flowed together in a great spreading pool, staining the mosaic of the constellation of Corij that decorated the plaza’s center.

A prolonged groan went up from the warlords of Ergoth. They pressed forward, jostling the Household Guards holding them back.

“Justice is done,” Ackal V declared.

He rose and commanded Dalar to accompany him. Outwardly nonchalant, he crossed the square to the palace. A double line of guards formed a path for emperor and heir, and more soldiers jogged down from the palace to reinforce their comrades.

A loud metallic clang behind him made the emperor pause on the first of the palace steps. He looked back. A warlord’s personal dagger had landed on the pavement several paces away. Not a direct threat to Ackal V, the symbol of the warlord’s rank had been hurled over the heads of the massed guards in a show of contempt and defiance.

As though a dam had burst, the single blade was joined by others. They spun through the air, jeweled pommels glittering, a veritable deluge of flashing iron clattering and skidding over the ancient mosaic.

Ackal V’s studied nonchalance vanished. Face contorted with fury, he snatched Dalar’s hand and stamped up the stairs. All present knew that retribution would be swift. No one insulted Nazramin Bethen Ergothas Ackal V with impunity. No one.

The emperor was almost blind with rage. He shoved aside any servant unlucky enough to cross his path. In the antechamber of the throne room, his chamberlains huddled out of reach and uttered soothing phrases.

“Stop that chattering, you imbeciles, or I’ll have your tongues out!” Ackal V roared. The men instantly fell silent. He paced back and forth, unconsciously dragging the little prince along with him. “The arrogance! The conceit! I’ll have them exterminated! Every one of them!”

“Who then will fight for you?”

Valaran, dressed in a gown of imperial scarlet, stood in the open doorway to the throne room. Her chestnut hair, free for once of the tall headdress required by fashion, hung loose down her back. Surrounded by ladies dressed in muted hues, the empress seemed a great summer bloom fallen into a bed of pale spring blossoms.

Her appearance elicited squawks of dismay from the chamberlains. The men immediately cast down their eyes, looking away from the empress’s bare face.

“Why are you out of your quarters, lady?” her husband said icily. “And without a proper covering for your face?”

“Apologies, sire. I feared a riot and came with all haste to extricate Your Majesty from danger,” she replied.

His laughter was short and harsh. “With what troops, lady?”

Valaran gestured to the women around her. “Troops enough, Majesty. Few warlords – even arrogant, conceited ones – would raise a sword against unarmed women.”

This was certainly true, but when she held out her arms and Prince Dalar ran to her, Valaran’s true reason for defying law and custom became apparent. The empress had left her sacred enclave to save her son.

Ackal V’s attention returned to the original source of his fury. “This would not have happened if my Wolves had been here!”

Accompanied by a large entourage of priests, courtiers, and the emperor’s elderly cousin, Lord Gothalan, the Emperor’s Wolves had departed the night before. Their mission was known only to their patron.

Ackal V spoke to a nearby officer. “Tell the captain of the Householders to clear that insolent trash out of the Inner City.”

The soldier saluted and started to leave, but the emperor wasn’t finished.

“Have the daggers gathered up. And send the chamberlain of clans and heraldry to me. I want every blade identified.” A slow smile curved the emperor’s lips. “I intend to see to it each one finds its owner again.”

*

A small band of horsemen topped a rise in the Ackal Path, skidding to a halt. Before them, golden in the light of the midmorning summer sun, was the greatest vista in the empire: Daltigoth, capital of Ergoth.

On the left, the Dalti Canal ran parallel to the road, its waters jade green, its shimmering surface undisturbed by boats. Commerce, disrupted by the twin invasions, had not revived in the face of the Army of the East’s advance. Peasant farmers and the usual stream of travelers flowing to and from Daltigoth were conspicuously absent.

Between the canal and the road was a line of tall, weathered statues commemorating rulers of past ages. Tol, leading the group of horsemen, noted that the headless figures of Pakin Zan and Ergothas III still stood, just as they had many years ago, when he’d first come to Daltigoth. An image of Ackal IV had been raised since. It was half the size of the other colossi, an indifferent likeness carved in soft limestone. Given the winter storms common to the Great Horde Hundred, the statue’s features wouldn’t last ten years.

The small hill on which Tol and his companions had paused was called Emperor’s Knob. Legend had it that Ackal Ergot had stood here when he first surveyed the site of his future capital.

Tol drank from the waterskin Kiya handed him and reflected on the passage of time. When he’d last stood here, the land around Daltigoth had been gripped by winter, with deep snow blanketing the pasturelands to his left and the great orchards to his right, under a leaden sky. Now, the fruit trees were densely green and the pastures thronged with shaggy, red-coated cattle, the emperor’s own herd.

Although still more than two leagues away, Daltigoth filled the view from horizon to horizon, from the canal in the east to the peaks of the Harkmor range, to the south and west. The great city wall rose like an impenetrable cliff face. Beyond it, and taller still, the wall of the Inner City enclosed the imperial enclave of palace, Tower of High Sorcery, and Riders’ Hall.

It seemed impossible that they could overcome such a vast and imposing place. All Ackal V had to do was shut the gates, and the Army of the East would be powerless.

“They said we couldn’t get into Caergoth either,” Kiya said, reading her husband’s thoughts. She took the skin back from Tol and drank deeply.

Young Lord Quevalen muttered, “Why do we sit here alone? Where are the imperial hordes?”

It was a trenchant question. In the two days since the battle that had cost them Pagas and gravely wounded Egrin, the Army of the East had encountered no serious opposition. A handful of patrols, a few bands of hired archers was all the resistance they’d met, and all were quickly swept aside. Where were Ackal V’s vaunted ninety hordes?

Under duress, the customs officer Hathak had revealed that forces loyal to the emperor were gathering secretly behind the Army of the East. Minor crossroads north and south of the Ackal Path were the rendezvous points. Riders of the Great Horde had been sent out disguised as commoners, and only awaited word to take up hidden weapons and strike Tol’s men unawares from behind.

Hathak obviously believed what he told them, but after some rumination, Tol decided he did not. Since entering the Great Horde Hundred, they’d seen no more than two dozen farmers. Where were all these supposedly hidden warriors? Where were their horses? He felt the story had been planted by the emperor to keep them off balance, to keep them looking over their shoulders rather than straight ahead. His warlords agreed with this sensible assessment.

Since the army’s arrival at Emperor’s Knob, scouts had returned with other news. The city gates were shut tight, but there were signs that large numbers of mounted men had crossed the West Dalti River not more than two days ago – headed away from the city.

Now, as they stared at Daltigoth in the distance, Tol and his warlords were discussing this peculiar development.

“They mean to outflank us,” Mittigorn said. “With our attention fixed on the capital, the emperor’s hordes can sweep’round behind us and catch us in a noose!”

Two Riders from Zanpolo’s horde arrived, interrupting the debate. With them was a stranger mounted on a sturdy cob and bearing a standard. The plain white disk on its top was not a horde symbol Tol or his warlords recognized.

“My lord,” said the young man. “I am come from my master, chief priest of Corij, of the great temple in Daltigoth.”

The assembled warlords muttered among themselves. Tol leaned forward on the pommel of his saddle. “Does your master have a name?”

The herald swallowed, glancing at the bored warlords at Tol’s back. “Xanderel, my lord. My master is Xanderel.”

“What word does the august Xanderel bring to us?”

“He seeks an audience, my lord, to discuss the grievances that have brought you here.”

Mittigorn and the other commanders of the landed hordes were delighted by the news; they believed the emperor was making overtures toward peace. The Caergoth lords, however, did not trust that interpretation.

“This is not Ackal V’s way,” Zanpolo said firmly. “Negotiate? This emperor only negotiates at the point of a saber!”

“This time he’s not dealing with foreigners, nomads, or lizard-men,” Trudo countered. “We’re warlords of the empire. Why not treat with us?”

Zanpolo shook his head. He was certain this was a trick.

Tol agreed. Ackal V was capable of the worst double-dealing. The whole situation smelled worse than a thief on a gibbet.

According to the herald, the parley would be attended by priests from the temples of Mishas and Draco Paladine, as well as a guard escort of one hundred Riders.

“A large retinue for a few priests,” Zanpolo remarked, as all eyes went to Tol.

He replied after only a brief hesitation. “We will meet your master Xanderel, at sunset, at our camp on the plain, a half-league north of the Dragon Gate.”

The delay plainly puzzled the herald, but he nodded assent and cantered away. As he was going, Miya arrived. She’d been helping nurse Egrin. The old marshal was conscious and improving, but had no use of his right arm.

Told of the proposed meeting, Miya sided with the landed warlords and saw the parley as a good sign. Her sister, predictably, sided with Zanpolo and the skeptics.

“It’s a trap,” Kiya said darkly. “Priests mean magic. Don’t trust them, Husband!”

Lord Quevalen, who knew Daltigoth well, disagreed. “The priesthoods are not happy with the emperor,” he said. “He taxes their holdings heavily, and it is well known that he slights the gods.”

Argument ended as work on the camp took precedence. Tol had delayed the parley for that reason. If Ackal V intended a surprise attack while Tol was talking with the delegation of priests, he’d find a fortified defense waiting.

As work progressed, Miya entered the tent she shared with her sister to find Kiya already there. She was sorting through her scant belongings and had divided everything into four small piles.

“What are you doing?” Miya asked.

Kiya pointed to the first pile, which contained two good knives, a helmet, and a ring mail shirt. “This is for Eli, when he’s old enough,” she said. “That” — a pile of doeskin shifts, leggings, belts, and such — “is for you, Sister.”

Ignoring Miya’s demand for an explanation, Kiya pointed to the third pile, comprising personal items such as her tribal fetish, a carved ivory comb, and a nicely beaded vest.

“For our father,” she said.

She pivoted to point at the final pile, which contained her sword, scale shirt, and greaves. Miya let out a horrified yell.

Kiya’s long horsetail of blonde hair was gone. Her hair now ended raggedly at the nape of her neck.

The elder Dom-shu sister laid the thick hank of hair, tied with a leather thong, atop the last pile. “This,” she said evenly, “goes to our husband.”

Dom-shu warriors only cut their hair before a battle they did not expect to survive. The hair was offered as a sacrifice to Bran, god of the forest.

Miya grabbed her sister’s hands. “What are you thinking? You’ve been gloomy ever since I found you at Caergoth!”

“You found me? Since when does a rabbit track a fox?”

Miya bit off a reply, refusing to be baited. “Why are you in such a hurry to die?”

Brown eyes finally met brown eyes, and Kiya said, “Because the final battle is near. I feel it.”

Miya felt it, too, but not for herself or Kiya. Her chief worry was Tol. “Will Husband survive, do you think?” she asked in a low voice.

Kiya frowned and said, not unkindly, “If a mountain fell from the sky, that man would survive it.”

A skirl of horns interrupted them, announcing the arrival of the delegation from Daltigoth. Kiya rose and buckled on her sword. “You watch the guards, Sister,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on the priests. Agreed?”

For the first time in many years, Miya felt like weeping. Under her sister’s stern gaze, she struggled to swallow the lump in her throat.

Kiya spun her around to face the door flap and gave her a rude shove. “Hurry up. Ever since you became a mother, you’ve gotten so fat and slow!”

Miya forced a smile and replied, “I’m not fat. I’m only rounded. You’re sharp angles all over. No one would want to hug you!”

It was a lie. She pulled Kiya to her, and they embraced.

*

The delegation from Daltigoth arrived as the sun was disappearing behind the city. The priests filled four horse-drawn wagons. They were accompanied by a dual line of horsemen. Torchlight showed the escort to be a rather nondescript group, wearing indifferent armor. They looked like provincial levies. Tol’s warlords had expected to see imperial Riders, men they knew, but these horsemen were strangers.

Seven priests descended from the first wagon. All were clad in long white robes, topped by brown, hooded surcoats. All but one were quite tall. That one, the eldest judging by his yellow-gray beard, wore a golden circlet on his head. He was supported by a priest with a clipped brown beard who wore a white turban.

The remainder of the clerics, twenty-three in all, wore robes of sky blue for Mishas, or silver and white for Draco Paladine. They arranged themselves respectfully behind the seven priests of Corij.

There was a tense moment as five hundred spearmen of the Juramona Militia moved in, interposing themselves between the priests and their escort. The priests talked amongst themselves, ending their whispered conclave when Tol and his warlords approached.

Tol greeted the elderly man with the circlet, and asked, “Do I have the honor of addressing Xanderel, high priest of Corij in Daltigoth?”

The old fellow bowed. “I am he.”

“I am Tolandruth of Juramona. Welcome.”

“Thank you, my lord. Shall we retire to your tent to speak?”

“No. Anything to be said will be said out here in the open, for all to hear.”

Xanderel looked distinctly uncomfortable. He insisted they remove to a more private location, but Zanpolo interrupted.

“Speak, priest, or depart!” the forked-bearded warlord snapped.

Xanderel flinched and glared at Zanpolo. Recovering his equanimity, Xanderel produced a slim scroll from his sleeve. “Hear the words of His Imperial Majesty, Ackal V,” he intoned.

Once again, he was interrupted. A lone figure limped out of the shadows. Head bandaged and right arm in a sling, Egrin looked pale as a specter.

“You should not be up and walking!” Miya exclaimed, hurrying him.

“I have a right to be here,” the old marshal rasped, looking to Tol.

Hiding a smile of pleasure, which he feared his old mentor might misconstrue as amusement, Tol said, “You’re welcome, my lord. Always.”

Egrin shuffled through the crowd and stood at Tol’s right hand. Tol told the priest to continue.

Xanderel began to read the parchment he held.

“‘To those warriors gathered outside the gate of my city, I, Ackal the Fifth, sovereign lord of the Empire my forefathers made, send you this greeting.’”

Weak though he was, Egrin shot a penetrating look at Tol, who nodded. The emperor did not call them an army – an army suggested a legitimate body.

“‘Since returning to Daltigoth in triumph, after leading my imperial army in battle to destroy the bakali invaders, I have learned that certain eastern warlords banded together to fight the nomad tribesmen who entered my realm to plunder and pillage. Though not under imperial command, these eastern warlords did manage to drive the savages out of the empire, and for this I commend them.’”

A murmur went through Tol’s followers. A promising beginning.

“‘Yet this was not enough for some malcontents. Guided by malice and greed, these warlords forcibly entered the imperial city of Caergoth, damaged my property, and wrought violence on the person of my governor, Lord Wornoth. These and other crimes are fully known to me.

“‘Now these malcontent lords have come to Daltigoth, not as humble petitioners to my imperial majesty, but in arms, as rebels.’”

Loud denials came from Mittigorn, Argonnel, and the rest, and Xanderel paused in his reading until the protestations subsided.

“‘Despite this treason, I, Ackal V, forgive you.’”

More shouting. Xanderel plunged on, reading faster. “‘I forgive all your transgressions against my majesty, including bearing arms against my loyal hordes. Further, I will meet with all those warlords from the east who so desire it, to further mitigate the grievances they imagine they have against the throne of Ergoth. All this, I, Ackal V, do grant, if —’”

Here it comes, Tol thought.

“‘ — the living body of the criminal Tol of Juramona is delivered to me this night.’”

Xanderel lowered the scroll, his hands visibly shaking. The silence was so complete, the faint crackling of the numerous torches seemed loud.

None of the warlords wanted to turn Tol over to the emperor, but the offer of a full amnesty, backed by a personal hearing of the complaints that had brought them here, was extremely tempting.

For his part, Tol was impressed. The emperor’s strategy was cunning. Smiling wryly, he turned and said to his followers, “Well, must I leave now, or may I pack my bags first?”

He never heard the dagger being drawn. The tall, turbaned priest standing beside Xanderel drew the blade from inside his robe. Without sheath or scabbard to scrape against, it came out as quietly as death. The Dom-shu sisters, standing just behind Tol, saw the blade glint in the torchlight.

“Assassin!” Miya shouted, as Kiya reached for her saber.

Xanderel and four of the clerics threw themselves to the ground. The rest of the delegation produced daggers or short swords from beneath their robes and flung themselves at the nearest astonished warlords. Their mounted escort drew sabers and attacked the Juramona Militia.

When the turbaned priest, drove his long dagger straight at Tol’s throat, Miya yanked Tol backward and Egrin interposed himself. He seized the assassin’s wrist with his good left hand. As they struggled for the dagger, the priest’s turban fell away.

Tathman!

Tol instantly recognized the captain of the Emperor’s Wolves, despite his trimmed beard. Number Six in hand, Tol shouted for Egrin to get clear, but the old warrior would not let go Tathman’s dagger hand. Lacking a weapon and hampered by his injury, Egrin kicked hard at the other man’s shins. His hobnailed boots cut through the priestly robes and drew blood.

Tathman punched Egrin in the face. The old warrior’s head rocked back, once, twice, three times. Still, his iron grip did not falter. With a roar of fury, Tathman chopped at Egrin’s arm with his fist and finally broke free. Immediately, he slashed downward at Egrin’s face.

Tol caught Egrin and spun his friend into Miya’s arms, then turned to deal with the emperor’s favorite killer.

Tathman fended off Tol’s cuts and thrusts, retreating back toward the wagon that had brought him. His fighting style was peculiar: He seemed more intent on cutting Tol than impaling him.

On one pass the iron blade hissed close by Tol’s face, and he suddenly understood Tathman’s intent. The edge of the blade was coated with a yellow substance.

Poison.

Tol risked a fleeting glance over his shoulder. Egrin lay on the ground, his head and shoulders in Miya’s lap. His eyes were closed, and the cut on his face was bright red and inflamed.

Something deep inside Tol exploded with anger. With repeated thrusts of Number Six, he forced Tathman back until the big man fetched up against the wagon box. Around them, warriors and false priests fought, cursed, and shouted, but neither Tol nor Tathman said a word as they lunged and feinted. Tol’s steel saber finally got through, slicing the captain’s robe and revealing a gleam of metal beneath.

The poisoned dagger whisked by Tol’s eyes. He recovered and slashed hard at the vile weapon, scoring a bloody cut on Tathman’s chin. Down came the dagger toward Tol’s scale shirt. Backing a step, Tol turned sharply and drove Number Six into his foe’s unprotected thigh.

Tathman grunted, and backhanded Tol with his free hand. The blow rocked Tol, and he staggered. A red haze clouded his vision, but instinctively he raised his saber to protect his face. Tathman’s dagger’s struck his handguard. Tol swept Number Six down and felt his blade strike flesh. His vision cleared. Tathman was clutching the base of his neck with one hand, blood welling between his fingers.

The rest of the assassins had been subdued in the meantime. Several warlords, including the redoubtable Zanpolo and white-bearded Trudo, had fallen to poisoned daggers wielded by Tathman’s confederates.

A company of militia ran up with spears leveled at Tathman. Panting, Tol waved them off. He and the Wolf captain stood, gazes locked.

Tol slashed at Tathman’s already wounded shoulder. The big man parried, parried again, then made a backhanded swipe at Tol’s eyes. Tol brought Number Six up to his cheek, edge outward, and the blade cut deep into Tathman’s wrist. The Wolf captain groaned loudly as the tainted blade fell from his nerveless fingers. Still he did not go down, but only staggered back. His right wrist, partially severed, was held tight against his body; his left hand gripped his bleeding neck.

Tol struck again. Tathman received Tol’s saber through the knotted muscle of his upper right arm. Howling, Tathman fell.

Incredibly, the villain was not yet finished. After a brief struggle, Tathman made it to his knees.

Up went Number Six. Tathman raised his face and peered at his foe through sweaty, bloody strands of hair. There was no pleading in his eyes, only burning, unquenchable hatred.

The steel blade flashed down, and Tathman died.

Tol hurried to Miya. She held Egrin tightly, both of them shaking from the force of her grief. Egrin’s eyes were closed.

“He’s not breathing!” Miya sobbed.

Tol seized Egrin’s hand, saying harshly, “Don’t go, old man! Our j ob isn’t done!”

His plea was in vain. Egrin Raemel’s son was dead.

Tol rose, stumbling slightly on shaky legs. Kiya, standing behind him, gripped his shoulder. Her face was wet with tears.

Looking to Lord Quevalen, who stood nearby, Tol asked, “Are any of the assassins alive?” Hearing that half the delegation and its escort still lived, he added coldly, “I want their heads. Now.”

The Wolves were stripped of their clerical vestments and marched away. The genuine priests pleaded for mercy. Xanderel explained that he was not the chief priest of Corij. That distinction belonged to his master, Hycontas.

“Our part was forced, great lord!” the elderly priest babbled. “Our brothers in Daltigoth are being held hostage! They will be slaughtered because we have failed!”

Tol was not impressed. Xanderel or his fellows could have warned him. If they had, Lord Egrin would not now be lying dead. He ordered the priests stripped. None bore the distinctive chest tattoo of a Wolf – a crimson Ackal sun above a wolf’s head – so he spared their lives.

A wagon was brought forward, and the severed heads of the Emperor’s Wolves were piled inside. Clad only in their linen loincloths, the terrified priests were forced to sit atop this gruesome cargo.

Xanderel’s terror set his teeth to chattering. “My lord, you can’t mean to send us back this way!” he stuttered. “The emperor will surely put us all to death!”

Even through the hatred and anguish boiling in his heart, Tol knew the priest spoke the truth. He stared at the terrified men for a long moment, panting slightly from the force of his emotions.

“No. No one else will die in my stead. I will face Ackal V,” he said at last. “Alone.”

Quevalen and the other warlords protested vehemently, vowing Tol would be killed long before he reached the Inner City. A few threatened to stop him bodily, but the sight of Number Six, still reeking with Tathman’s blood, dissuaded them.

He turned to take leave of the Dom-shu sisters. Respecting their privacy, the warlords drew off a few paces.

Miya still held Egrin’s body, with Kiya kneeling beside her. Joining them, Tol took Miya’s hand and pressed the Irda millstone into her palm. “Keep this for me, in case I don’t come back.”

“No, take it. It will keep you safe!”

“I won’t need it to do what must be done,” he said firmly. “And I won’t risk it falling into the emperor’s hands.”

Her fingers closed around the braided metal circlet. Face distorted by unaccustomed malice, she whispered, “See justice done, Husband! If it takes every piece of luck the gods owe you, see it through!”

He squeezed her hand tightly. “I will, Wife.”

When he stood, Kiya rose as well. “I must come with you,” she said, hand on her sword hilt. He looked her in the eye, and nodded. Miya bowed her head, weeping all the more.

Tol left Mittigorn, eldest surviving commander, in charge. The warlords, shocked by the emperor’s treachery, were equally dazed by Tol’s decision, yet as one they saluted their peasant general.

Kiya and Tol climbed onto the wagon’s plank seat. To supplement her sword, Kiya brought along a bow and a full quiver of arrows.

Of their own accord, the men of the Juramona Militia gathered on either side of the palisade gate and raised their spears, as Tol drove the wagon and its grisly cargo past. He looked left, then right, acknowledging their salute, then fixed his gaze on the distant Dragon Gate ahead.

The night air was warm and stiflingly still. Sweat was trickling into Tol’s eyes. Every small jolt of the wagon felt like a blow. His hands were clenched around the reins of the two-horse team. The priests behind him were quiet except for an occasional whimper or moan. The only other break in the silence occurred when, after a particularly hard jolt, the large head of the Wolf called Argon rolled over and thudded against the side of the wagon. The sight was too much for a younger priest, and he was sick over the side of the slowly moving wagon.

The torches flanking the Dragon Gate came into view. Their light played over the reliefs that surrounded the monumental portal: the hero Volmunaard’s battle against the black dragon Vilesoot. The images seemed alive, moving and shifting in the orange glow.

The gate was open.

Tol pulled the horses to a stop. Both the entry gate – an opening large enough for two riders abreast – and the great ceremonial portal stood wide. The latter yawned like a primeval cavern, black and endless. Twenty horsemen riding boot to boot could fit through it. No guards were in sight.

“This isn’t right,” Kiya muttered.

“It’s perfect.” Tol snapped the reins, setting the horses in motion again.

They passed through the broad tunnel of the gatehouse and into the city proper. The streets were devoid of people. The windows of every house and business were shuttered. No light showed. Wind stirred along the stone canyons, pushing rubbish before it. Somewhere a dog barked.

Against the cloud-streaked night sky, the Tower of High Sorcery glowed like a pearlescent lamp. Its light gave the Inner City wall and palace towers a gray, insubstantial look, as though they were edifices of fog. Kiya recalled the cloud faces that had watched her from the summer sky. She lifted a hand and touched her burial beads, tied around her neck. If Tol noticed, he did not say anything.

Following the route he well remembered, Tol guided the creaking wagon through the empty streets.

At a square just outside the Inner City gate, they found two thousand Riders, bearing the standards of the Scarlet Dragon and Whirlwind hordes, waiting for them. The Riders sat in close ranks, their horses snorting and bobbing their heads in the humid night air.

Tol halted the wagon. Four men in officer’s garb left the front ranks and rode forward.

“My lord Tolandruth!” The one who hailed him was about Tol’s own age, with a close-cropped blond mustache and pale blue eyes. Tol didn’t know him. “I am Gonzakan, warlord of the Whirlwind Horde.”

“Ah. You have come to arrest me.”

The officer frowned and leaned forward in the saddle, as though trying to see better. “I did not picture you arriving by wagon, my lord. What cargo do you carry?”

“The Emperor’s Wolves.”

Astonished, the four warlords rode closer. They swore eloquently.

“The Wolves never looked better!”

“By Corij, he got Tathman! And Argon!”

“He got them all!”

The blond officer addressed Tol in an awed voice.

“We know your errand, my lord.”

“And you mean to stop me?” His fingers tightened on the sharkskin grip of Number Six.

“No, my lord.”

Tol’s eyes narrowed. He suspected a jest, but Gonzakan quickly explained. After the emperor’s execution of nine blameless commanders for failing to stop Tol earlier, the warlords of the Great Horde had come to a momentous decision:

They would no longer defend Ackal V. They were not acting to save the empire, but out of a sense of collective dishonor. For years Ackal V had tormented his people, from the highest priest to the poorest peasant, but Ergoth had known tyrannical rulers before. He had ordered his hordes to fight hopeless battles, but that was a Rider’s lot in life, willingly accepted. To fall in battle was expected, hoped for. However, a pointless, dishonorable death at the emperor’s own hands could not be tolerated. By unanimous assent, the Riders had abandoned the emperor to whatever fate Corij decreed for him – fate in the form of Tolandruth of Juramona.

Tol was stunned. What of the Household Guard? The Horse Guards? The imperial courtiers?

“Some have resisted,” said Gonzakan. “They are being dealt with. Since you’ve disposed of the Wolves, no one now stands between you and the emperor.”

Valaran is mine!

The thought made Tol shiver, in spite of the night’s heat.

Kiya leaned close. “Let’s go, before the dream ends and they change their minds!” she whispered.

Tol dropped the reins. Jumping down from the wagon, he told Kiya to wait there. Like a sleepwalker, he passed between the lines of mounted men, crossing the broad square under the eyes of two thousand warriors.

Iron scraped. A warrior in the front ranks drew his saber and raised it high.

“Tolandruth!” he shouted.

Two thousand sabers thrust up toward the starry sky. “Tolandruth! Tolandruth!”

The Inner City gate was open and unguarded, but the imperial plaza wasn’t empty. Dark stains covered the mosaic. Farther on were several bodies, shapeless mounds illuminated by the glow of the Tower of High Sorcery.

He found more broken weapons and blood on the palace steps. There’d been a brisk fight here, but the Householders had been swept aside.

Once Tol had seen Emperor Pakin III stand on these steps, bathed in the adoration of his loyal subjects, Tol included. Now there was only the sound of the night breeze and Tol’s own harsh breathing. Only one of the iron sconces by the palace doors held a lit torch, and the double doors themselves were ajar. A brass lamp, stamped flat by a heavy boot, lay in the doorway.

The imperial palace felt like a cemetery – potent with the feeling that people had once been here, but now were gone. Tol finally encountered living occupants, small knots of courtiers or servants hiding in alcoves and whispering. More than once he heard his name spoken with the sort of frightened reverence usually reserved for forces of nature. Fire. Flood. Plague. Tolandruth.

The audience hall was barred to him. Its floor-to-ceiling double doors did not yield when he leaned against them. Tol smote the panels with the pommel of his sword and shouted. Ruddy light bloomed in the thin gap between doors and floor. A heavy bolt clanked. The left door swung inward.

Tol lifted Number Six, prepared to face a reserve contingent of Wolves or even Ackal V himself. The face that greeted him was pale, hollow-eyed, and indescribably lovely.

“By all the gods,” Valaran breathed, lifting her oil lamp higher. “It is you!”

Tol’s breath caught and held. She was thinner than he remembered, her chin sharper, and her cheekbones more prominent, but her eyes were still the clear, bottomless green of fine emeralds and her hair a warm, deep chestnut. She was clothed in white, with a delicate tracery of crimson thread decorating her gown’s close-fitting bodice.

“Valaran.” How sweet it was to speak her name aloud! “Valaran,” he said again. “I have come for you.”

She moved back a step so he could enter. She swung the ponderous door shut and threw the bolt. Without warning, Tol suddenly found her in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder. She held him tightly, her body shaking.

“I have worked so long for this moment,” she said, lips close by his ear. “So long and so hard, and I thought many times I’d failed. Yet here you are!”

The catch in her voice touched him deeply. Her scent filled his head, making him dizzy with desire. He lifted his hand and carefully rested it on her shimmering hair.

“I swore I would return.”

A small laugh, faintly edged with hysteria. “I know.”

They kissed, tentatively at first, then with increasing fervor. He had nearly forgotten his rage and his mission, until Valaran drew back and said, “Come, my love.”

She took his hand and led him down the carpeted path that ran the length of the long, high-ceilinged audience hall. Only a few candles in the room’s numerous candelabra were lit. Most of the enormous iron racks were overthrown, candle wax spattered over the floor. Elegant chairs were overturned, tables smashed.

Valaran led him to the rotund body of a man, clad in fine burgundy velvet, lying facedown on the marble floor. A wide bloodstain spread out from the man’s head.

“One of his most loyal chamberlains – Lord Fedro,” she said. “He killed him himself.”

Tol wondered what had happened here, but was given no time to ask. Valaran drew him onward.

The far end of the hall was brighter than the rest of the cavernous room. The throne of Ergoth was flanked by flaming braziers. The seat was vacant.

“Dal! Dal!” Valaran called with quiet urgency.

A small boy emerged from behind the throne and ran to her, clutching her gowned legs.

She smiled^laying a hand on the child’s thick mop of black hair. “This is my son, Crown Prince Dalar of Ergoth.”

The child had his father’s high forehead and sharp features. His eyes were Val’s, emerald green and enormous in his pale face.

Tol nodded awkwardly at the boy, then looked beyond him. Protruding from behind the throne was a foot clad in a crimson slipper. It twitched. Tol strode around the imperial seat to find the emperor lying on the floor. His robe of gold and imperial scarlet was twisted around his legs and torso, as if he’d been thrashing about on the floor. His eyes were half closed, his fingers twitched convulsively, and he was mumbling into the carpet.

Taken aback, Tol said, “What happened to him?”

“Drugged.” Valaran shrugged at his shocked expression, adding, “I put a sleeping draught in his wine. With the Wolves gone, and him so preoccupied, he didn’t notice until it was too late.”

Tol rolled the semiconscious man onto his side. Ackal V reeked of sweat and sour wine. A bloody dagger lay on the rug beneath him – the same blade, Valaran said, that he’d used to slay his unfortunate chamberlain.

He felt Valaran’s hand on his shoulder. “Everything is ready,” she murmured. “The Great Horde has forsaken him. The Household Guards are beaten and scattered. His Wolves are gone. I knew they couldn’t kill you! No one remains to defend him.”

Tol stood. Valaran put her arms around his waist from behind. She pressed the trembling length of her body against his.

“This is the reason I lived, for this moment! I tried to kill myself, but he stopped me. Then there was Dalar – another reason to live until you came back to me. I dreamt of this, Tol, awake and asleep, for nearly seven years! Only one deed remains. Just one act, and I am yours forever.”

He felt the feather-touch of her lips against his neck. “Kill him, Tol.”

Tol looked down at his enemy. There was no one in the world he hated more than this man. Haughty, cruel, vicious Prince Nazramin, who had murdered his own brother to steal his throne. No one deserved death more than the man who had worked such evil against Tol, from the moment they’d first met up to this night.

Yet Tol did not move.

To hear the woman he adored say, “Kill him, Tol,” as easily he had said, “I love you,” was more than Tol could bear. The touch of her lips had sent a wave of desire through him, but those words brought a nauseating rush of revulsion. His sword arm seemed turned to stone.

“Tol, my love, what are you waiting for? Kill him!” Valaran said, more loudly.

Prince Dalar was watching them, peering around the golden throne of Ergoth. What did the boy make of this? Tol wondered. What did he think of his mother, kissing this strange, savage-looking man and demanding that he kill Dalar’s father? The child’s wide-eyed gaze only deepened Tol’s revulsion. He shook off Valaran’s embrace, stalking away. She followed.

“Where are you going, Tol? This is the culmination of our dreams! We’ve waited so long for this night! Finish him! No one will weep for such a monster!”

The gods alone knew how much Tol wanted to kill Nazramin! When he’d been driven out of Daltigoth, broken inside and out, it was the hope of Valaran’s love and the dream of Nazramin’s death that had kept him alive. He had always imagined killing his enemy, but in some honorable fashion. Never once had he considered slitting the throat of a helpless, drooling drunkard.

Valaran circled the throne to stand by Dalar, who clung to her hand. The great chair stood between her and Tol. “Don’t be misled by pity!” she insisted. “Great men are not moved by such feelings. You are the finest warrior of the age! Look at what you’ve done: slain monsters, bested wizards, conquered nations! Your deeds will live forever! Only one challenge remains. You must complete the saga of Tolandruth of Juramona! Kill the emperor, and both my love and the throne of Ergoth will be yours!”

Valaran’s face was no longer pale, but suffused with blood and contorted by hate. The woman he loved was suddenly a stranger to him. Was this the woman of his dreams?

He had to clear his throat twice before words would come. “I never wanted that,” he told her. “The empire would be destroyed. Riders and nobles would never tolerate a peasant on the throne.”

She made an impatient sound and waved his objections aside. “Any who objected could be put down! You have an army, don’t you?”

Taking up her husband’s dagger, she offered it to Tol.

“Don’t worry, my love.” Her voice was soft, caressing. “You can rule as regent until my son is old enough to reign for himself. Teach him to be as honorable and forthright, as you are.” She extended the blade closer. “How else can we be together? I’ve lived half my life as wife to men I did not love, and lover to a man I could not have. Do you know what that’s done tome?”

Sadness welled inside Tol. Pity and regret were so strong that speech was difficult. “Yes, I can see,” he whispered.

The emperor’s mumbling grew louder and Valaran’s voice rose as well. “Take the dagger, Tol! Kill him! You must! Kill him, Toll!”

He took the heavy golden blade from her hands. It would be easily done. A simple thrust would end Ackal V’s life, as it had ended Egrin’s. A cold shock of pain hit Tol as he remembered: Egrin was dead, killed by Ackal as surely as if the emperor’s hand had held the poisoned blade.

“Egrin —” Tol’s voice broke, but he forced the words out. “Egrin died tonight, killed by Tathman with a poisoned dagger. And Zala, the half-elf huntress, she died in the fight for Caergoth.”

She blinked at him, not understanding, and he added, “Helbin was your ally, too. He has vanished, you know, and is probably dead.”

Valaran turned to stare at her husband. He was stirring more, his mumbled words becoming clearer. Raking her fingers through her long, loose hair, she said, “You’re a warrior, Tol. Haven’t you lost comrades before?”

The polished blade in Tol’s hand was stained with the blood of the slain chamberlain. Tol hadn’t known the man. He might’ve been a cowardly toady, like Wornoth, but he hadn’t deserved to die like that, his throat slit by the very master he served. No one deserved that. No one.

Enough! He threw the dagger to the floor. It skidded across the marble, coming to rest by Dalar’s foot. The prince picked it up.

“It’s done, Valaran. I’m done. And I’m going away. Far away from here.” He held out a hand. “Forget the emperor and come with me.”

Emerald eyes huge, she recoiled. “What are you saying? Go away? I am Empress of Ergoth!”

“All I care about now is you. Come with me, Val. You and your son.”

He could see her breast rise and fall with her rapid breathing. She stared at him, brows knotted in thought. “This is a test. The gods are testing me. That, or else you’re mad.” She gripped her throat with one hand and uttered a short, sharp laugh. “Worse, you’re a coward! Your enemy lies at your feet, and you won’t finish the job! What did all your friends die for? Why did you come here?”

“I’ve done everything I could to save the empire. I won’t stain my soul by killing a helpless man, Val. Not even for you.”

He walked around the prostrate emperor. He was halfway to the doors when Valaran acted. She snatched the dagger from her son’s hands and raced after Tol, white gown flying.

“You can’t leave!” she cried. “The emperor must die, don’t you see? Our lives are forfeit if he survives. He’ll hunt you down, torture you to death! And me! He’ll kill me, Tol! He’ll kill me with his own hands!”

He turned in time to catch her in his arms. Her heart was beating wildly, and ribbons of chestnut hair fell wildly about her face. She radiated fear and fury in equal measure. What he did not sense in her was love.

For more than six years he had survived for one purpose – to be reunited with Valaran. That dream had taken on a poignant reality as he witnessed the suffering Ackal V had inflicted on his people. Now, at the very moment of his triumph, Tol realized his dream was nothing more than that, without substance, without reality.

He was so very weary, in body and in spirit. “Kill him yourself then,” he said.

Fury blazed from Valaran’s eyes. “Do you think I can’t? I’ve killed, Tol, for us! Winath —” She bit off the name, choking back a sob, then insisted, “But the gods would curse me for killing my son’s father!”

He let her go and walked away, out of the palace and out of the Inner City. In the square beyond, the Riders, whispering among themselves, watched him depart, alone and unhurried. Kiya still waited for him. She’d secured two saddle horses and was mounted on one of them. Without a word, he took the reins of the other and swung into the saddle.

Ignoring the questioning hails of Lord Gonzakan, Tol and Kiya cantered away.

Outside the Dragon Gate, Tol paused. Directly ahead, the eastern sky was brightening. Sunrise was not far off. Tol dismounted beneath the imposing reliefs of Volmunaard and Vilesoot and drew Number Six. He jammed the steel blade into a chink between two massive stones, putting all his weight and strength behind it. The saber bored into the mortar to half its length. With both hands Tol pushed down on the hilt. Number Six bent and bent, farther than any iron blade ever could. Just as he began to think the dwarf-forged metal would never yield, it snapped off a span above the hilt.

He returned the stump of the famed saber to his scabbard and swung up into the saddle again.

“Are we done?” asked Kiya.

“We’re done.”

They rode out into the new day.

Monuments

They laid Egrin to rest in Zivilyn’s Carpet. It was Tol’s idea to bury him in a peaceful place, amidst a monument of flowers for a man whose life was war. Tol and the Dom-shu sisters made the journey alone. Tol dug the grave, while Miya sewed a deerskin shroud for her friend and Kiya stood watch with her bow.

No one followed them.

By the time preparations were complete, sunset had come.

Whippoorwills made their mournful calls from the forest.

The meadow itself was quiet, and above it, the clouds crimson

And gold.

As a last gesture, Tol tucked the Irda nullstone into Egrin’s hands, crossed on his chest. “His valiant spirit will guard it now,” he said quietly.

With the grave closed and the earth replaced, night was upon them. The sky had cleared. Red Luin and white Solin sailed the starry sky, casting their light upon the scene. The time had come for the sisters and Tol to part company. Tol had made a difficult choice: solitude.

Miya’s eyes kept turning to the Great Green, the dark forest beckoning her home. Eli awaited her in her father’s village.

“Where will you go?” she asked Tol. Coloring, she added, “I’d like to know, in case I ever need to find you. Is it to be Tarsis?” Despite their recent troubles, she knew Hanira would always find a place for Tol.

He shook his head emphatically. His presence in Tarsis would be a provocation. If Ackal V’s successor didn’t demand his head, Hanira would certainly try to involve him in one of her complicated plots. He’d had enough of war and politics for the time being.

“Some place quiet,” he said.

Miya embraced him with fervor, and whispered, “There’s always a place for you by my fire.”

He smiled. “I am grateful for that,” he said, and held her tightly for moment.

Kiya, her stoicism firmly in place during Egrin’s burial, began to cry. She asked Tol no questions about his future plans. After kissing him on both cheeks, and cuffing the back of his neck, she headed for the forest.

The Dom-shu had no need for horses, so Tol and Miya unsaddled the sisters’ animals and set them free. Tol had not ridden the gray war-horse here. Like the sisters’ horses, his mount this day was a plains pony. After a moment’s reflection, he set his animal free as well. He would seek peace as an ordinary peasant. That’s where he had come from, and that’s where he belonged. No one would search for the vaunted Lord Tolandruth among the humble folk.

A last word to Miya and he set out, striding through the waist-high summer growth.

Miya remained by Egrin’s grave. She watched Tol diminish with distance, until he was lost among the wind-tossed flowers.

*

The empire endured. The tumultuous events set in motion by the twin invasions of Ergoth did not end when Tol left the capital, but plunged inexorably onward, like a growing avalanche.

In the confusion following Tol’s departure, Ackal V perished. The exact cause of his death was never established. Common rumor had it he killed himself rather than face Lord Tolandruth’s vengeance. His son, Prince Dalar, was proclaimed emperor, and a council of four warlords declared themselves the boy’s regents. Two of them hailed from the Army of the East, Mittigorn and Quevalen. The others were Daltigoth lords, Vanz Hellman and Rykard Gonzakan, the warlord with the blond mustache who had met Tol in the plaza before the Inner City.

The regency of the four warlords ended in less than a year, however, when a new threat arose in the east. A fiery young claimant to the throne of Ackal Ergot, Pakin princess Mellamy Zan, raised her standard on the open plain. Taking advantage of the same discontent that had led so many warlords to rally around Tol, Mellamy raised a sizable army and marched on Daltigoth. Her advance broke apart the alliance of the four regents.

Mittigorn, who was from the east, was accused of secretly sympathizing with the Pretender and executed. Youngest of the regents, Lord Quevalen was maneuvered out of power, leaving two strong generals to vie for sole control. Vanz Hellman, popularly called the Hammer of the Bakali, held his own until fortune forced him to take the field against Mellamy Zan’s army. The Pakin Pretender had a supremely talented general at her side, a mysterious figure who never appeared in public without a mask. A few folk thought her brilliant commander was Lord Tolandruth himself, but no one who actually saw the masked general believed that. The Pretender’s commander was slender and elegant, with a polished voice and elaborate manners. Tol of Juramona was none of those things.

Mellamy Zan’s army crushed Hellman’s hordes at the Battle of the Caer Crossing. Hellman was slain, and Rykard Gonzakan became sole protector of the underage emperor. However, soon after Gonzakan’s ascension to power, Emperor Dalar, who had never been crowned, vanished from history. His fate is unknown, and in time he disappeared even from the roll of Ergothian rulers. He was no more than ten years old.

Mellamy Zan reached the gates of Daltigoth. In a masterful bit of negotiation, a peace parley was proposed by the Red Robe Helbin, who had emerged from hiding after the death of Ackal V. The wizard was a profoundly changed man.

Known before for his fastidious style and calculating brain, now Helbin was colder and coarser, with shaved head and a strange taste for raw meat.

Helbin’s plan called for Mellamy Zan to marry the Ackal heir, a nephew of Ackal V, thus uniting the warring Pakin and Ackal clans. However, unbeknownst to her supporters, Mellamy Zan had formulated her own plan. Realizing the nobles of Ergoth would never accept a woman as their ruler, she secretly applied to certain illegal sorcerers for a rite of transformation. Only days before her scheduled marriage to the Ackal heir, Mellamy Zan became Mellamax Zan, Pakin prince.

All Helbin’s careful work came to naught, and Mellamax did gain the throne of Ergoth for one hundred days until General Gonzakan gathered Ackal loyalists and deposed the Pakin emperor. Bereft of power, unable to keep the dark, mysterious bargain she’d made with the sorcerers, Mellamax once more became Mellamy. She fled to Tarsis, where she lived in eccentric splendor until assassinated by agents of Regent Gonzakan.

Empress Valaran did not long enjoy her freedom from her vicious husband. Lord Hellman wooed her, but she rejected his advances and ended her days a lonely prisoner. Confined to a rocky promontory overlooking the western sea, Valaran was consigned in the same stone keep that once held the deposed Empress Kanira. The governor of her prison was changed twice a year to prevent any one man from falling under the sway of his beautiful, clever captive.

Valaran adapted to life in her remote prison. Her main expenditures were for parchment, quills, and ink. She wrote eighteen additional books before her death: histories, commentaries, and learned discourses on natural philosophy. Her most famous title was The Life of Lord Tolandruth, which predictably was suppressed by the Ergothian regent. Still, copies were smuggled to the capital and circulated in secret, copied in back rooms and cellars. The biography was popular in foreign lands, too, particularly Tarsis. Over the years, many errors – both accidental and intentional – entered the text. Much of what later generations read about Tol of Juramona were copyists’ tall tales.

The mind of the former empress remained acute to the end of her life, it is said. For forty-two years she dwelt in captivity, although as she once remarked to one of her governors, she had in fact been a prisoner from birth – thirty-seven years in the Inner City, forty-two in Kanira’s Keep.

Her only protest against her fate was a symbolic one. She refused to cut her hair. By the time she died, it swept the floor behind her. Although no longer its original warm chestnut shade, the pure white fall was still breathtakingly beautiful. On her deathbed Valaran made only one request: she asked that her hair be cut close to her head and sent away for separate burial. Not to Daltigoth, city of her ancestors, Valaran asked it be interred in the rebuilt city of Juramona. Her last jailer, a young warlord named Gabien Solamna, faithfully carried out the wishes of the former empress.

Uncle Corpse, long-lived chief of the Dom-shu, met his fate while hunting. An enormous boar, the largest ever seen in the Great Green, turned on the hunters pursuing him and gored the old chief. Voyarunta managed to thrust his spear into the beast’s heart. Man and boar perished side by side. The Dom-shu didn’t practice blood succession. A new chief was chosen from the leading men of the tribe.

Miya and her son Eli lived quietly in their forest home, the old woman much respected for her many adventures. Eli, inheriting his father’s facility with his hands, spent six years among the dwarves, learning metalworking. He introduced both iron and steel to the forest tribes.

Kiya married a Dom-shu warrior name Voraduna, a stocky fellow with black hair and eyes, half a span shorter than she. They were together many years, until during a minor fight with the Karad-shu Kiya stopped an arrow. Mortally wounded, she asked her husband not to leave her to the mercy of the enemy. He gave her his dagger. The Karad-shu did not get any prisoners that day.

Hanira, Syndic of Tarsis and mistress of the guild of goldsmith and jewelers, never married again. She lived for twenty-four years after the death of her daughter, Valderra, and when the gods claimed her she was reputed to be the richest woman in the world. It took a hundred laborers three days to empty her personal hoard of coins from the vaults of Golden House.

*

The forty-three years of war and dynastic struggle that raged after Ackal V’s death were known collectively as the Successors’ War, because each faction put forth new heirs and new claimants to the power of Ergoth as soon as the previous pretenders perished. It was a war of pities and sieges mostly, and the countryside was spared heavy damage.

The eventual victor was Pakin IV – not an Ackal, but a true descendant of the great Pakin Zan. When his armies were sweeping through the Eastern Hundred, one of his scouts became separated from his horde. Confused (one hill looked very like another to the city-bred Rider), he rode down cart tracks and cow paths, searching for his comrades. He could get no help. Frightened peasants fled at his approach.

Early one spring morning, the lost scout came across an old man working a field. The peasant saw him coming but didn’t run away. The Pakin warrior rode up slowly, hailing the farmer in a friendly fashion, and offering a silent prayer to Corij that the oldster could tell him where in Chaos’s name he was.

Stooped and weather-worn, the farmer looked up at him. “Greetings, my lord,” he said readily enough.

“And to you, good man. I’m lost. Can you tell me where I am?”

“This is the Jura Hill Country, my lord,” the peasant replied, leaning against his hoe.

“I know that!” Striving to control his exasperation, the young warrior added, “Where is the nearest town?”

“The village of Pate’s Knob is half a day’s ride that way.” The old man pointed due east with one large hand.

“No, no. Where’s the nearest real town?”

“That would be Juramona, my lord. Three days, north-northeast.”

Relief spread across the rider’s face. He grinned, teeth white against his grimy, sun-baked face.

“Juramona! That’ll do. We took Juramona ten days ago!”

“‘We?’”

The proud Rider straightened his hack. “The loyal hordes of our rightful emperor, Pakin IV!”

Pursing his lips, the old man nodded slowly. He unhooked a heavy gourd from the cloth sash around his neck and offered it to the Rider.

The warrior took it gratefully. After the first swallow, his eyes widened. Instead of the spring water he’d expected, it was filled with potent cider.

The farmer chuckled at his expression. “That will light a fire in your veins, eh, my lord?”

“Indeed! You must have a leather throat to drink this stuff, old man!”

“I’m used to it.” The farmer took the gourd back and drank two quick swallows of cider before hooking the gourd on his sash again. “So, the Pakins took Juramona. By storm or by siege?”

“By storm. We scaled a section of wall by night.”

“Mmm. Not like the old days.”

Warmed by his unexpected libation, the Pakin leaned comfortably on the pommel of his saddle and asked what he meant.

“Juramona used to be a more formidable place. In Marshal Odovar’s day, no one could have scaled the wall and survived.”

The name of the long-ago marshal meant nothing to the twenty-four-year-old warrior. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Were you a soldier once?”

The old man plied his hoe again, loosening the soil along a row of onions. He shook his gray head. “No, my lord. Just a poor farmer.”

The Rider turned his horse in a half-circle, toward the northeast and Juramona. He took a single coin from the purse at his waist and tossed it to the elderly farmer.

“Thanks for your help, old man – and for the drink!” he said, and spurred away.

The farmer let the coin hit the ground. It was a newly minted silver crown and bore a glowering profile. The latest Pakin Pretender must be doing well enough if he had time and money to strike coins.

Raising his hoe, Tol cleaved a dry clump of soil into bits and raked them over the coin. He had no need of it. The directions were free, and so was he.

Firstborn

(2308 PC)

Prelude

YEAR OF THE DOLPHIN

(2308 PC)

The great river Thon-Thalas flowed southward through the forests of Silvanesti. Three-quarters of the way down its length, the broad waterway branched and twin streams flowed around an island called Fallan. On this island was the capital city of the elven nation, Silvanost.

Silvanost was a city of towers. Gleaming white, they soared skyward, some dwarfing even the massive oak trees on the mainland. Unlike the mainland, Fallan Island had few trees. Most had been removed to make way for the city. The island’s naturally occurring marble and quartz formations had then been spell-shaped by the Silvanesti, transforming them into houses and towers. Approaching the island from the west on the King’s Road, a traveler could see the marble city gleaming with pearly light through the trees. At night, the city absorbed the starlight and moonlight and radiated it softly back to the heavens.

On this particular night, scudding clouds covered the sky and a chill rain fell. A brisk breeze swirled over the island. The streets of Silvanost, however, were full. In spite of the damp cold, every elf in the city stood outside, shouting, clapping, and singing joyfully. Many carried candles, hooded against the rain, and the dancing lights added to the strange yet festive air.

A wonderful thing had happened that evening in the capital. Sithel, Speaker of the Stars, ruler of all Silvanesti, had become a father. Indeed the great fortune of Speaker Sithel was that he had two sons. He was the father of twins, an event rare among elves. The Silvanesti began to call Sithel “Twice Blest.” And they celebrated in the cool, damp night.

The Speaker of the Stars was not receiving well-wishers, however. He was not even in the Palace of Quinari, where his wife, Nirakina, still lay in her birthing bed with her new sons. Sithel had left his attendants and walked alone across the plaza between the palace and the Tower of the Stars, the ceremonial seat of the speaker’s power. Though common folk were not allowed in the plaza by night, the speaker could hear the echoes of their celebrations. He strode through the dark outlines of the garden surrounding the tower. Wending his way along the paths, he entered the structure through a door reserved for the royal family.

Circling to the front of the great emerald throne, Sithel could see the vast audience hall. It was not completely dark. Six hundred feet above him was a shaft in the roof of the tower, open to the sky. Moonlight, broken by clouds, filtered down the shaft. The walls of the tower were pierced by spiraling rows of window slits and encrusted with precious jewels of every description. These split the moonlight into iridescent beams, and the beams bathed the walls and floor in a thousand myriad colors. Yet Sithel had no mind for this beauty now. Seating himself on the throne he had occupied for two centuries, he rested his hands on the emerald arms, allowing the coolness of the stone to penetrate and soothe his heavy heart.

A figure appeared in the monumental main doorway. “Enter,” said the speaker, He hardly spoke above a whisper, but the perfect acoustics of the hall carried the single word clearly to the visitor.

The figure approached. He halted at the bottom of the steps leading up to the throne platform and set a small brazier on the marble floor. Finally the visitor bowed low and said, “You summoned me, great Speaker:’ His voice was light, with the lilt of the north country in it.

“Vedvedsica, servant of Gilean,” Sithel said. “Rise.”

Vedvedsica stood. Unlike the clerics, of Silvanost, who wore white robes and a sash in the color of their patron deity, Vedvedsica wore a belted tabard of solid gray. His god had no temple in the city, because the gods of Neutrality were not officially tolerated by the priests who served the gods of Good.

Vedvedsica said, “May I congratulate Your Highness on the birth of his sons?”

Sithel nodded curtly. “It is because of them that I have called you here,” he replied. “Does your god allow you to see the future?”

“My master Gilean holds in his hands the Tobril, the Book of Truth. Sometimes he grants me glimpses of this book.” From the priest’s expression it appeared this was not a practice he enjoyed.

“I will give you one hundred gold pieces,” said the speaker. “Ask your god, and tell me the fate of my sons.”

Vedvedsica bowed again. He dipped a hand into the voluminous pockets of his tabard and brought out two dried leaves, still shiny green, but stiff and brittle. Removing the conical cover from the brazier, he exposed hot coals and held the leaves by their stems over the dully-glowing fire.

“Gilean, the Book! Gray Voyager! Sage of Truth, Gate of Souls! By this fire, open my eyes and allow me to read from the book of all-truth!”

The cleric’s voice was stronger now, resonating through the empty hall. “Open the Tobril! Find for Speaker Sithel the fates of his two sons, born this day!”

Vedvedsica laid the dry leaves on the coals. They caught fire immediately, flames curling around them with a loud crackle. Smoke snaked up from the brazier, thick, gray smoke that condensed as it rose. Sithel gripped the arms of his throne and watched the smoke coil and writhe. Vedvedsica held up his hands as if to embrace it.

Gradually the smoke formed into the wavering shape of an open scroll. The back of the scroll faced Sithel. The front was for Vedvedsica only. The cleric’s lips moved as he read from the book that contained all the knowledge of the gods.

In less than half a minute the leaves were totally consumed. The fire flared three feet above the golden brazier, instantly dispelling the smoke. In the flash of flame, the priest cried out in pain and reeled away. Sithel leaped up from his throne as Vedvedsica collapsed in a heap.

After descending the steps from the throne platform, Sithel knelt beside the cleric and carefully turned him over. “What did you see?” he asked urgently. “Tell me – I command you!”

Vedvedsica took his hands from his face. His eyebrows were singed, his face blackened. “Five words... I saw only five words, Highness,” he said falteringly.

“What were they?” Sithel nearly shook the fellow in his haste to know. “The Tobril said, ‘They both shall wear crowns...’ “

Sithel frowned, his pale, arching brows knotting together. “What does it mean? Two crowns?” he demanded angrily. “How can they both wear crowns?”

“It means what it means, Twice-Blest.”

The speaker looked at the brazier, its coals still glowing. A few seconds’ glimpse into the great book had nearly cost Vedvedsica his sight. What would the knowledge of Gilean’s prophecy cost Sithel himself? What would it cost Silvanesti?

Chapter 1

SPRING – YEAR OF THE HAWK

(2216 PC)

Clouds scattered before the wind, bright white in the brilliant sunshine. In the gaps of blue that showed between the clouds, a dark, winged form darted and wheeled. Far larger than a bird, the creature climbed with powerful strokes of its broad wings. It reached a height above the lowest clouds and hovered there, wings beating fast and hard.

The beast was a griffon, a creature part lion, part eagle. Its magnificent eagle’s head and neck gave way to the torso and hindquarters of a lion. A plumed lion’s tail whipped in the wind. Behind the beast’s fiercely beaked head and unblinking golden eyes, the leather straps of a halter led back to a saddle, strapped to the griffon’s shoulders. In the saddle sat a helmeted figure clad in green and gold armor. An elven face with brown eyes and snow-colored hair peered out from under the bronze helmet.

Spread out below them, elf and griffon, was the whole country of Silvanesti. Where wind had driven the clouds away, the griffon rider could see the green carpet of forests and fields. To his right, the wandering silver ribbon of the Thon-Thalas, the Lord’s River, flowed around the verdant Fallan Island. On this island was Silvanost, city of a thousand white towers.

“Are you ready, Arcuballis?” whispered the rider to his mount. He wound the leather reins tightly around his strong, slender hand. “Nowl” he cried, drawing the reins sharply down.

The griffon put its head down and folded its wings. Down they plummeted, like a thunderbolt dropped from a clear sky. The young elf bent close to the griffon’s neck, burying his fingers in the dense, copper-hued feathers. The massive muscles under his fingers were taut, waiting. Arcuballis was well trained and loyal to its master; it would not open its wings again until told to do so. If its master so desired, the griffon would plunge straight into the fertile soil of Silvanesti.

They were below the clouds, and the land leaped into clear view. The rich green canopy of trees was more obvious now. The griffon rider could see the pines and the mighty oaks reaching up, connecting soil to sky. It was a view of the land few were ever granted.

He had dropped many thousands of feet, and only a few hundred remained. The wind tore at his eyes, bringing tears. He blinked them away. Arcuballis flexed its folded wings nervously, and a low growl sounded in its throat. They were very low. The rider could see individual branches in the trees, see birds fleeing from the griffon’s rapidly growing shadow.

“Now!” The rider hauled back sharply on the reins. The broad wings opened slowly. The beast’s hindquarters dropped as its head rose. The rider felt himself slide backward, bumping against the rear lip of the tall saddle. The griffon soared up in a high arc, wings flailing. He let the reins out, and the beast leveled off. He whistled a command, and the griffon held its wings out motionless. They started down again in a steep glide.

The lower air was rough, full of eddies and currents, and the griffon bobbed and pitched. The rider threw back his head and laughed.

They skimmed over the trees. Abruptly the woods gave way to orderly rows of trees, orchards of cherry, plum, and fima nuts. Elves working in the orchards saw only a large object hurtle over their heads, and they panicked. Many tumbled down ladders, spilling baskets of fruit.

The rider put a brass horn to his lips, sounding a shrill note. The griffon added its own eerie call, a deep, trilling growl that was also part lion, part eagle.

The rider urged the beast up. The wings beat lazily, gaining a few dozen feet of height. They banked right, swooping over the slow-flowing waters of the Thon-Thalas. There were many watercraft plying the river-flat log rafts poled by sturdy, sunbrowned elves, piled high with pots and cloth to be traded in the wild south; the slender dugouts of the fishers, the bottoms of which were silvered with the morning’s catch. The griffon swept over them in a flurry of wings. The rafters and fishers looked up idly from their work. As travelers up and down the great waterway, they were not easily impressed, not even by the sight of a royal griffon in flight.

On they flew, across the river to Fallan Island. The rider wove his flying steed among the many white towers so skillfully that the griffon never once scraped a wingtip. Their shadow chased them down the streets.

The rider approached the center point of the city, and the center point of every elf’s life and loyalty, the Tower of the Stars. At six hundred feet, it was the tallest spire in Silvanost and the seat of power of the Speaker of the Stars.

He steered the griffon in a quick circle around the white marble tower. The horn was at his lips again, and he blew a rude, flat warning. It was a lark, a bit of aerial fun, but halfway around the tower the rider spied a lone figure on the high balcony, looking out over the city. He reined back and sideslipped Arcuballis toward the tower. The white-haired, white-robed figure was no one less than Sithel, Speaker of the Stars.

Startled, the rider clumsily turned the griffon away. His eyes met those of the elven monarch for a moment, then Sithel turned and re-entered the tower. The griffon rider shook his head and made for home. He was in trouble.

North of the tower, across the ornate Gardens of Astarin, stood the Palace of Quinari. Here the descendants of Silvanos, the House Royal, lived. The palace stood clear of the trees and consisted of three, three-story wings radiating from a rose-colored marble tower. The tower soared three hundred feet from base to pinnacle. The three wings of the palace were faced with beautiful colonnades of green-streaked marble.

The columns spiraled gracefully upward from their bases, each in imitation of a unicorn’s horn.

The rider’s heart raced as the palace came into view. He’d been away four days, hunting, flying, and now he had an appointment to keep. He knew there would be trouble with the speaker for his insolent behavior at the Tower of the Stars, but for now thoughts of his upcoming rendezvous made him smile.

He brought the griffon in with firm tugs on the reins. He steered toward the eastern wing of the palace. Lion’s claws behind and eagle’s talons in front touched down on the cool slate roof. With a tired shudder, Arcuballis drew in its wings.

Servants in sleeveless tunics and short kilts ran out to take the beast’s bridle. Another elf set a wooden step ladder against the animal’s side. The rider ignored it, threw a leg over the griffon’s neck, and nimbly dropped to the rooftop. More servants rushed forward, one with a bowl of clean water, the other with a neatly folded linen towel.

“Highness,” said the bowl bearer, “would you care to refresh yourself?”

“A moment.” The rider pried off his helmet and shook his sweat-damp hair. “How goes everything here?” he asked, dipping his hands and arms in the clean water, once, twice, three times. The water quickly turned dingy with dirt.

“It goes well, my prince,” the bowl bearer replied. He snapped his head at his companion, and the second servant proffered the towel.

“Any word from my brother, Prince Sithas?”

“In fact, yes, Highness. Your brother was recalled yesterday by your father. He returned from the Temple of Matheri this morning.”

Puzzlement knit the rider’s pale brows. “Recalled? But why?”

“I do not know, my prince. Even now, the speaker is closeted with Prince Sithas in the Tower of the Stars.”

The rider tossed the towel back to the servant who’d brought it. “Send word to my mother that I have returned. Tell her I shall see her presently.

And should my father and brother return from the tower before sunset, tell them the same.”

The servants bowed. “It shall be done, my prince.”

The elf prince went briskly to the stair that led from the rooftop into the palace. The servants hastened after him, sloshing dirty water from the bowl as they went.

“Prince Kith-Kanan! Will you not take some food?” called the bowl bearer.

“No. See to it Arcuballis is fed, watered, and brushed down.”

“Of course —”

“And stop following me!”

The servants halted as if arrow-shot. Prince Kith-Kanan rattled down the stone steps into the palace. As it was early summer, all the window shutters were open, flooding the interior corridors with light. He strode along, scarcely acknowledging the bows and greetings of the servants and courtiers he met. The length of the shadows on the floor told him he was late. She would be angry, being kept waiting.

Kith-Kanan breezed out the main entrance of the palace. Guards in burnished armor snapped to attention as he passed. His mood lightened with every step he took toward the Gardens of Astarin. So what if his father dressed him down later? It wouldn’t be the first time, by any means. Any amount of lecturing was worth his hurried flight home to be on time for his rendezvous with Hermathya.

The gardens bulked around the base of the great tower. Not long after Silvanos, founder of the elven nation, had completed the Tower of the Stars, priests of the god Astarin asked for permission to create a garden around the structure. Silvanos gladly granted their request. The clerics laid out a garden in the plan of a four-pointed star, each point aligned with one of the cardinal directions.

They wove spells granted to them by Astarin, the Bard King, spells that formed the trees and flowers in wonderful ways. Thornless red and white roses grew in delicate spirals around the trunks of evergreen oaks. Wisteria dripped purple blossoms into still, clear pools of water. Lilacs and camellias drenched the air with their perfume. Broad leaves of ivy spread over the garden paths, shading them and protecting strollers from all but the harshest rains. And most remarkably, laurels and cedars grew in circular groves, their tops coming together to form perfect shelters, where elves could meditate. Silvanos himself had favored a grove of laurels on the west side of the garden. When the august founder of the elven nation had died, the leaves on the laurels there changed from green to gold, and they remained that way ever after.

Kith-Kanan did not enter the Gardens of Astarin by one of the paths. In his deerskin boots, he crept silently beside the shoulder-high wall of spell-shaped mulberry. He hoisted himself over the wall and dropped down on the other side, still without a sound. Crouching low, he moved toward the grove.

The prince could hear the impatient rustle of footsteps inside the golden grove. In his mind he saw Hermathya pacing to and fro, arms folded, her red-gold hair like a flame in the center of the gilded trees. He slipped around to the entrance to the grove. Hermathya had her back to him, her arms folded tight with vexation. Kith-Kanan called her name.

Hermathya whirled. “Kith! You startled me. Where have you been?”

“Hurrying to you,” he replied.

Her angry expression lasted only a moment longer, then she ran to him, her bright blue gown flying. They embraced in the arched entry of Silvanos’s retreat. The embrace became a kiss. After a moment, Kith-Kanan drew back a bit and whispered, “We’d best be wary. My father is in the tower. He might see us.”

In answer, Hermathya pulled the prince’s face down to hers and kissed him again. Finally, she said breathlessly, “Now, let us hide.” They entered the shelter of the laurel grove.

Under the elaborate rules of courtly manners, a prince and a well-born elf maiden could not consort freely, as Kith-Kanan and Hermathya had for the past half-year. Escorts had to accompany both of them, if they ever saw each other at all. Protocol demanded that they not be alone together.

“I missed you terribly,” Hermathya said, taking Kith-Kanan’s hand and leading him to the gray granite bench. “Silvanost is like a tomb when you’re not here.”

“I’m sorry I was late. Arcuballis had headwinds to fight all the way home.” This was not strictly true, but why anger her further? Actually Kith-Kanan had broken camp late because he had stayed to listen to two Kagonesti elves tell tall tales of adventures in the West, in the land of the humans.

“Next time,” Hermathya said, tracing the line of Kith-Kanan’s jaw with one slender finger, “take me with you.”

“On a hunting trip?”

She nipped at his ear. Her hair smelled of sunshine and spice. “Why not?”

He hugged her close, burying his face in her hair and inhaling deeply. “You could probably handle yourself right enough, but what respectable maiden would travel in the forest with a male not her father, brother, or husband?”

“I don’t want to be respectable.”

Kith-Kanan studied her face. Hermathya had the dark blue eyes of the Oakleaf Clan and the high cheekbones of her mother’s family, the Sunberry Clan. In her slender, beautiful face he saw passion, wit, courage —

“Love,” he murmured.

“Yes,” Hermathya replied. “I love you too.”

The prince looked deep into her eyes and said softly, “Marry me, Hermathya.” Her eyes widened, and she pulled away from him, chuckling. “What is funny?” he demanded.

“Why talk of marriage? Giving me a starjewel will not make me love you more. I like things the way they are.”

Kith-Kanan waved to the surrounding golden laurels. “You like meeting in secret? Whispering and flinching at every sound, lest we be discovered?”

She leaned close again. “Of course. That makes it all the more stimulating.”

He had to admit his life had been anything but boring lately. Kith-Kanan caressed his lover’s cheek. Wind stirred through the gilded leaves as they drew closer. She entwined her fingers in his white hair. The prince thought no more of marriage as Hermathya filled his senses.

*

They parted with smiles and quiet touches on each other’s faces. Hermathya disappeared down the garden path with a toss of bronze-red hair and a swish of clinging silk. Kith-Kanan stood in the entrance of the golden grove and watched her until she was lost from sight. Then, with a sigh, he made for the palace.

The sun had set and, as he crossed the plaza, the prince saw that the servants were setting lamps in the windows of the palace. All Silvanost glimmered with light by night, but the Palace of Quinari, with its massive tower and numerous tall windows, was like a constellation in the heavens. Kith-Kanan felt very satisfied as he jauntily ascended the steps by the main doors.

The guards clacked their spears against their shoulder armor. The one on Kith-Kanan’s right said, “Highness, the speaker bids you go to the Hall of Balif.”

“Well, I’d best not keep the speaker waiting,” he replied. The guards snapped to, and he passed on into the deep, arched opening. Even the prospect of a tongue-lashing by his father did little to lower Kith-Kanan’s spirits. He still breathed the clean, spicy scent of Hermathya, and he still gazed into the bottomless blue depths of her eyes.

The Hall of Balif, named for the kender general who had once fought so well on behalf of the great Silvanos, took up an entire floor of the central tower. Kith-Kanan swung up the broad stone stairs, clapping servants on the back and hailing courtiers heartily. Smiles followed in the elf prince’s wake.

Oddly, two guards stood outside the high bronze doors of the Hall of Balif. The doors were not usually guarded. As Kith-Kanan approached, one guard rapped on the bronze panel behind him with the butt of his spear. Silently Kith-Kanan stood by as the two soldiers pushed the heavy portals apart for him.

The hall was indifferently lit by a rack of candles on the oval feasting table. The first face Kith-Kanan saw did not belong to his father, Sithel.

“Sithas!”

The tall, white-haired young elf stood up from behind the table. Kith-Kanan circled the table and embraced his twin brother heartily. Though they lived in the same city, they saw each other only at intervals. Sithas spent most of his time in the Temple of Matheri, where the priests had been educating him since he was a child. Kith-Kanan was frequently away, flying, riding, hunting.

Ninety years they’d lived, and by the standards of their race they were barely adults. Time and habit had altered the twins, so much so that they were no longer exact copies of each other. Sithas, elder by scant minutes, was slim and pale, the consequence of his scholarly life. His face was lit by large hazel eyes, the eyes of his father and grandfather. On his white robe he wore a narrow red stripe, a tribute to Matheri, whose color it was.

Kith-Kanan, because of his outdoor life, had skin almost as brown as his eyes. The life of a ranger had toughened him, broadened his shoulders and hardened his muscles.

“I’m in trouble,” he said ruefully.

“What have you done this time?” Sithas asked, loosening his grip on his twin.

“I was out flying on Arcuballis —”

Have you been scaring the farmers again?”

“No, it’s not that. I was over the city, so I circled the Tower of the Stars —”

“Blowing your horn, no doubt.”

Kith-Kanan sighed. “Will you let me finish? I went round the tower, very gently, but who should be there on the high balcony but Fatherl He saw me and gave me that look.”

Sithas folded his arms. “I was there too, inside. He wasn’t pleased.”

His twin lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “What’s this all about? He didn’t call me here to chastise me, did he? You wouldn’t be here for that.”

“No. Father called me back from the temple before you came home. He’s gone upstairs to fetch Mother. He’s got something to tell you.”

Kith-Kanan relaxed, realizing he wasn’t going to get dressed down. “What is it, Sith?”

“I’m getting married,” said Sithas.

Kith-Kanan, wide-eyed, leaned back on the table. “By E’li! Is that all you have to say? ‘I’m getting married?’ “

Sithas shrugged. “What else is there to say? Father decided that it’s time, so married I get.” Kith-Kanan grinned. “Has he picked a girl?”

“I think that’s why he sent for you and Mother. We’ll all find out at the same time.”

“You mean, you don’t know who it is yet?”

“No. There are fourteen suitable clans within House Cleric, so there are many prospective brides. Father has chosen one based on the dowry offered – and according to which family he wants to link with House Royal.”

His brother’s eyes danced with merriment. “She will probably be ugly and a shrew, as well.”

“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she be healthy, well-born, and properly worship the gods,” Sithas said calmly.

“I don’t know. I think wit and beauty ought to count for something,” Kith-Kanan replied. “And love. What about love, Sith? How do you feel about marrying a stranger?”

“It is the way things are done.”

That was so like him. The quickest way to insure Sithas’s cooperation was to invoke tradition. Kith-Kanan clucked his tongue and walked in a slow circle around his motionless twin. His words rang off the polished stone walls. “But is it fair?” he said, mildly mocking. “I mean, any scribe or smith in the city can choose his mate himself, because he loves her and she loves him. The wild elves of the woods, the green sea elves, do they marry for duty, or do they take as mate a loving companion who’ll bear them children and be a strength to them in their ancient age?”

“I’m not any smith or scribe, much less a wild elf,” Sithas said. He spoke quietly, but his words carried as clearly as Kith-Kanan’s loud pronouncements. “I am firstborn to the Speaker of the Stars, and my duty is my duty.”

Kith-Kanan stopped circling and slumped against the table. “It’s the old story, isn’t it? Wise Sithas and rash Kith-Kanan,” he said. “Don’t pay me any heed, I’m really glad for you. And I’m glad for me, too. At least I can choose my own wife when the time comes.”

Sithas smiled. “Do you have someone in mind?”

Why not tell Sithas? he thought. His twin would never give him away.

“Actually,” Kith-Kanan began, “there is —”

The rear door of the hall opened, and Sithel entered, with Nirakina at his side.

“Hail, Father,” the brothers said in unison.

The speaker waved for his sons to sit. He held a chair out for his wife, then sat himself. The crown of Silvanesti, a circlet of gold and silver stars, weighed heavily on his brow. He had come to the time in his life when age was beginning to show. Sithel’s hair had always been white, but now its silky blondness had become brittle and gray. Tiny lines were etched around his eyes and mouth, and his hazel eyes, the sign of the heritage of Silvanos, betrayed the slightest hint of cloudiness. All these were small, outward signs of the great burden of time Sithel carried in his lean, erect body. He was one thousand, five hundred years old.

Though past a thousand herself, Lady Nirakina was still lithe and graceful. She was small by elven standards, almost doll-like. Her hair was honey brown, as were her eyes. These were traits of her family, Clan Silver Moon. A sense of gentleness radiated from her, a gentleness that soothed her often irritable husband. It was said about the palace that Sithas had his father’s looks and his mother’s temperament. Kith-Kanan had inherited his mother’s eyes and his father’s energy.

“You look well,” Nirakina said to Kith-Kanan. “Was your trip rewarding?”

“Yes, Lady. I do love to fly,” he said, after kissing her cheek.

Sithel gave his son a sharp glance. Kith-Kanan cleared his throat and bid his father a polite greeting.

“I’m glad you returned when you did,” Sithel said. “Has Sithas told you of his upcoming marriage?” Kith-Kanan admitted he had. “You will have an important part to play as well, Kith. As the brother of the groom, it will be your job to escort the bride to the Tower of the Stars —”

“Yes, I will, but tell us who it is,” insisted the impatient prince.

“She is a maiden of exceptional spirit and beauty, I’m told,” Sithel said. “Well-educated, well-born —”

“Father!” Kith-Kanan pleaded. Sithas himself sat quietly, hands folded on his lap. Years of training in the Temple of Matheri had given him formidable patience.

“My son,” Sithel said to Sithas, “Your wife’s name is Hermathya, daughter of Lord Shenbarrus of the Oakleaf Clan.”

Sithas raised an eyebrow approvingly. Even he had noticed Hermathya. He said nothing, but nodded his acceptance.

“Are you all right, Kith?” Nirakina asked. “You look quite pale.”

To her surprise, Kith-Kanan looked as if his father had struck him across the face. The prince swallowed hard and nodded, unable to speak. Of all the eligible daughters, Hermathya was to marry Sithas. It was incomprehensible. It could not happen!

None of his family knew of his love for her. If they knew, if his father knew, he’d choose someone else.

“Ah,” Kith-Kanan managed to say, “who – who else knows of this?”

“Only the bride’s family,” said Sithel. “I sent Shenbarrus acceptance of the dowry this morning.”

A sinking feeling gripped Kith-Kanan. He felt like he was melting into the floor. Hermathya’s family already knew. There was no going back now. The speaker had given his word. He could not, in honor, rescind his decision without gravely offending Clan Oakleaf.

His parents and brother began to discuss details of the wedding. A tremor passed through Kith-Kanan. He resolved to stand up and declare his love for Hermathya, declare that she was his and no one else’s. Sithas was his brother, his twin, but he didn’t know her. He didn’t love her. He could find another wife. Kith-Kanan could not find another love.

He rose unsteadily to his feet. “I —” he began. All eyes turned to him.

Think, for once in your life! He admonished himself. What will they say to you?

“What?” said his father. “Are you ill, boy? You don’t look well.”

“I don’t feel too well,” Kith-Kanan said hoarsely. He wanted to shout, to run, to smash and break things, but the massive calm of his mother, father, and brother held him down like a thick blanket. He cleared his throat and added, “I think all that flying has caught up with me.”

Nirakina stood and put a hand to his face. “You do feel warm. Perhaps you should rest.”

“Yes. Yes,” he said. “That’s just what I need. Rest.” He held the table edge for support.

“I make the formal announcement when the white moon rises tonight. The priests and nobles will gather in the tower,” Sithel said. ‘You must be there, Kith.”

“I – I’ll be there, Father,” Kith-Kanan said. “I just need to rest.”

Sithas walked with his brother to the door. Before they went out, Sithel remarked, “Oh, and leave your horn at the palace, Kith. One act of impudence a day is enough.” The speaker smiled, and Kith-Kanan managed a weak grin in reply.

“Shall I send a healer to you?” asked Nirakina.

“No. I’ll be fine, Mother,” Kith-Kanan said.

In the corridor outside, Sithas braced his brother’s shoulders and said, ‘Looks as if I’m to be lucky; both brains and beauty in my wife.”

“You are lucky,” Kith-Kanan said. Sithas looked at him in concern. Kith-Kanan was moved to say, “Whatever happens, Sith, don’t think too badly of me.”

Sithas frowned. “What do you mean?”

Kith-Kanan inhaled deeply and turned to climb up the stairs to his room. “Just remember that nothing will ever separate us. We’re two halves of the same coin.”

“Two branches of the same tree,” Sithas said, completing the ritual the twins had invented as children. His concern deepened as he watched Kith-Kanan climb slowly up the stairs.

Kith-Kanan didn’t let his brother see his face contort with pain. He had only a scant two hours before Solinari, the white moon, rose above the trees. Whatever he was going to do, he had to think of it before then.

*

The great and noble of Silvanesti filed into the open hall of the Tower of the Stars. Rumors flew through the air like sparrows, between courtier and cleric, noble clan father and humble acolyte. Such assemblies in the tower were rare and usually involved a matter of state.

A pair of young heralds, draped in bright green tabards and wearing circlets of oak and laurel, marched into the hall in perfect step. They turned and stood on each side of the great door. Slender trumpets went to their lips, and a stirring fanfare blared forth. When the horns ceased, a third herald entered.

“Free Elves and True! Give heed to His Highness, Sithel, Speaker of the Stars!”

Everyone bowed silently as Sithel appeared and walked to his emerald throne. There was a spontaneous cry of “All hail the speaker!” from the ranks of the nobles; the hall rang with elven voices. The speaker mounted the steps, turned, and faced the assembly. He sat down, and the hails died.

The herald spoke again. “Sithas, son of Sithel, prince heir!”

Sithas passed through the doorway, bowed to his father, and approached the throne. As his son mounted the seven steps to the platform, Sithel held out his hand, indicating his son should stand to the left of the throne. Sithas took his place, facing the audience.

The trumpets blared again. “Lady Nirakina, wife, and Prince Kith-Kanan, son of Sithel!”

Kith-Kanan entered with his mother on his arm. He had changed to his courtly robes of sky-blue linen, clothing he rarely wore. He moved stiffly down the center aisle, his mother’s hand resting lightly on his left arm.

“Smile,” she whispered.

“I don’t know four-fifths of them,” Kith-Kanan muttered.

“Smile anyway. They know you.”

When he reached the steps, the pommel of Kith-Kanan’s sword poked out from under his ceremonial sash. Nirakina glanced down at the weapon, which was largely concealed by the voluminous folds of his robe.

“Why did you bring that?” she whispered.

“It’s part of my costume,” he replied. “I have a right to wear it.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” his mother said primly. “You know this is a peaceful occasion.”

A large wooden chair, cushioned with red velvet, was set in place for the speaker’s wife on the left of Prince Sithas. Kith-Kanan, like his twin, was expected to stand in the presence of his father, the monarch.

Once the royal family was in place, the assembled notables lined up to pay their respects to the speaker. The time-honored ritual called for priests first, the clan fathers of House Cleric next, and the masters of the city guilds last. Kith-Kanan, far to the left of Sithel, searched for Hermathya in the press of people. The crowd numbered some three hundred, and though they were quiet, the shuffling of feet and the rustle of silk and linen filled the tower. The heralds advanced to the foot of the speaker’s throne and announced each group as they formed up before Sithel.

The priests and priestesses, in their white robes and golden headbands, each wore a sash in the color of their patron deity-silver for E’li, red for Matheri, brown for Kiri Jolith, sky blue for Quenesti Pah, and so on. By ancient law, they went barefoot as well, so they would be closer to the sacred soil of Silvanesti.

The clan fathers shepherded their families past the speaker. Kith-Kanan caught his breath as Lord Shenbarrus of Clan Oakleaf reached the head of the line. He was a widower, so his eldest daughter stood beside him.

Hermathya.

Sithel spoke for the first time since entering the Tower of the Stars. “Lady,” he said to Hermathya, “will you remain?”

Hermathya, clad in an embroidered gown the color of summer sunlight, her striking face framed by two maidenly braids – which Kith-Kanan knew she hated – bowed to the speaker and stood aside from her family at the foot of the throne platform. The hiss of three hundred whispering tongues filled the hall.

Sithel stood and offered a hand to Hermathya. She went up the stair without hesitation and stood beside him. Sithel nodded to the heralds. A single note split the air.

“Silence in the hall! His Highness will speak!” cried the herald.

A hush descended. Sithel surveyed the crowd, ending his sweep by looking at his wife and sons. “Holy clerics, elders, subjects, be at ease in your hearts,” he said, his rich voice echoing in the vast open tower. “I have called you here to receive joyous news. My son, Sithas, who shall be speaker after me, has reached the age and inclination to take a wife. After due consultation with the gods, and with the chiefs of all the clans of House Cleric, I have found a maiden suitable to be my son’s bride.”

Kith-Kanan’s left hand strayed to his sword hilt. A calm had descended over him. He had thought long and hard about this. He knew what he had to do.

“I have chosen this maiden knowing full well the disappointment that will arise in the other clans,” Sithel was saying. “I deeply regret it. If this were a barbarian land, where husbands may have more than one wife, I daresay I could make more of you happy.” Polite laughter rippled through the ranks of the nobles. “But the speaker may have only one wife, so one is all I have chosen. It is my great hope that she and my son will be as happy together as I have been with my Nirakina.”

He looked at Sithas, who advanced to his father’s side. Holding Hermathya’s left hand, the speaker reached for Sithas’s right. The crowd held its breath, waiting for him to make the official announcement.

“Stop!”

The couple’s fingers were only a hairsbreadth apart when Kith-Kanan’s voice rang out. Sithel turned in surprise to his younger son. Every eye in the hall looked with shock at the prince.

“Hermathya cannot marry Sithas!” Kith-Kanan declared.

“Be silent,” Sithel said harshly. “Have you gone mad?”

No, Father,” Kith-Kanan said calmly. “Hermathya loves me.”

Sithas withdrew his hand from his father’s slack fingers. In his hand he held a starjewel, the traditional betrothal gift among elves. Sithas knew something had been brewing. Kith-Kanan had been too obviously troubled by the announcement of his bride-to-be. But he had not guessed at the reason.

“What does this mean?” demanded Lord Shenbarrus, moving to his daughter’s side.

Kith-Kanan advanced to the edge of the raised floor. “Tell him, Hermathya. Tell them all!”

Sithas looked to his father. Sithel’s gaze was on Hermathya. Her cheeks were faintly pink, but her expression was calm, her eyes cast down.

When Hermathya said nothing, Sithel commanded, “Speak, girl. Speak the truth.”

Hermathya lifted her gaze and looked directly at Sithas. “I want to marry the speaker’s heir,” she said. Her voice was not loud, but in the tense silence, every sound, every word was like a thunderclap.

“No!” Kith-Kanan exclaimed. What was she saying? “Don’t be afraid, Thya. Don’t let our fathers sway you. Tell them the truth. Tell them who you love.”

Still Hermathya’s eyes were on Sithas. “I choose the speaker’s heir.”

“Thya!” Kith-Kanan would have rushed to her, but Nirakina interposed herself, pleading with her son to be still. He gently but firmly pushed her aside. Only Sithas stood between him and Hermathya now.

“Stand aside, Brother,” he said.

“Be silent!” his father roared. “You dishonor us all!”

Kith-Kanan drew his sword. Gasps and shrieks filled the Tower of the Stars. Baring a weapon in the hall was a serious offense, a sacrilegious act. But Kith-Kanan wavered. He looked at the sword in his hand, at his brother’s and father’s faces, and at the woman he loved. Hermathya stood unmoving, her eyes still fixed on his twin. What hold did they have on her?

Sithas was unarmed. In fact no one in the hall was armed, except for the flimsy ceremonial maces some of the clan fathers carried. No one could stop him if he chose to fight. Kith-Kanan’s sword arm trembled.

With a cry of utter anguish, the prince threw the short, slim blade away. It skittered across the polished floor toward the assembled clerics, who moved hastily out of its way. It was ritually unclean for them to touch an edged weapon.

Kith-Kanan ran from the tower, blazing with frustration and anger. The crowd parted for him. Every eye in the hall watched him go.

Sithas descended to the main floor and went to where Kith-Kanan’s sword lay. He picked it up. It felt heavy and awkward in his unpracticed hand. He stared at the keen cutting edge, then at the doorway through which Kith-Kanan had departed. His heart bled for his twin. This time Kith had not merely been impudent or impetuous. This time, his deeds were an affront to the throne and to the gods.

Sithas saw only one proper thing to do. He went back to his father and bride-to-be. Laying the naked blade at Sithel’s feet, he took Hermathya’s hand. It was warm. He could feel her pulse throbbing against his own cool palm. And as Sithas took the blue starjewel from the folds of his robe, it seemed almost alive. It lay in his hand, throwing off scintillas of rainbow light.

“If you will have me, I will have you,” he said, holding the jewel out to Hermathya.

“I will,” she replied loudly. She took the starjewel and held it to her breast.

The Tower of the Stars shook with the cheers of the assembled elves.

Chapter 2

LATER THAT NIGHT

Sithel strode with furious energy down the corridors of the Palace of Quinari. Servants and courtiers backed away from him as he went, so fierce was the anger on his face. The assembly had ended on a triumphant note, but the Speaker of the Stars could not forget the outrage his own son had committed.

The corridor ended at the palace’s great central tower. Sithel approached the huge bronze doors that closed off the private rooms of his family from the rest of the palace. The doors were eighteen feet high, inlaid with silver runes that kept a protective spell on them. No one not of the blood of Silvanos could open the doors. Sithel hit one door with each palm. The immense portals, delicately balanced, swung inward.

“Where is he? Where is Kith-Kanan?” he demanded, setting his feet wide apart and planting his fists on his hips. “I’ll teach that boy to shame us in front of a public assembly!”

Within the chamber, Nirakina sat on a low, gilded couch. Sithas bent over her, proffering a goblet of sweet nectar. The prince straightened when his father entered, but neither he nor his mother spoke.

“Well?” demanded Sithel.

Nirakina looked up from her goblet. Her large amber eyes were full of sadness. “He is not in the palace,” she said softly. “The servants looked for him, but they did not find him.”

Sithel advanced into the room. His hard footsteps were lost in the deep carpets that covered the center of the floor, and his harsh words were muffled by the rich tapestries covering the cold stone walls.

“Servants, bah, they know nothing. Kith-Kanan has more hiding places than I’ve had years of life.”

“He is gone,” Sithas said at last.

“How do you know that?” asked his father, transferring his glare to his eldest son.

“I do not feel his presence within the palace,” Sithas said evenly. The twins’ parents knew of the close bond that existed between their sons.

Sithel poured a goblet of nectar, using this simple task to give himself time to master his anger. He took a long drink.

“There is something else,” Sithas said. His voice was very low. “The griffon, Arcuballis, is missing from the royal stable.”

Sithel drained his cup. “So, he’s run away, has he? Well, he’ll be back. He’s a clever boy, Kith is, but he’s never been out in the world on his own. He won’t last a week without servants, attendants, and guides.”

“I’m frightened,” said Nirakina. “I’ve never seen him so upset. Why didn’t we know about this girl and Kith?” She took Sithas’s hand. “How do we know she will be a good wife for you, after the way she’s behaved?”

“Perhaps she is unsuitable,” Sithas offered, looking at his father. “If she were, perhaps the marriage could be called off. Then she and Kith-Kanan —”

“I’ll not go back on my word to Shenbarrus merely because his daughter is indiscreet,” Sithel snapped, interrupting his son’s thoughts.

“Think of Hermathya, too; shall we blacken her reputation to salve Kith’s wounded ego? They’ll both forget this nonsense.”

Tears ran down Nirakina’s cheeks. “Will you forgive him? Will you let him come back?”

“It’s outside my hands,” Sithel said. His own anger was failing under fatherly concern. “But mark my words, he’ll be back.” He looked to Sithas for support, but Sithas said nothing. He wasn’t as sure of Kith-Kanan’s return as his father was.

*

The griffon glided in soundlessly, its mismatched feet touching down on the palace roof with only a faint clatter. Kith-Kanan slid off Arcuballis’s back. He stroked his mount’s neck and whispered encouragement in its ear.

“Be good now. Stay.” Obediently the griffon folded its legs and lay down.

Kith-Kanan stole silently along the roof. The vast black shadow of the tower fell over him and buried the stairwell in darkness. In his dark quilted tunic and heavy leggings, the prince was well hidden in the shadows. He avoided the stairs for, even at this late hour, there might be servants stirring about in the lower corridors. He did not want to be seen.

Kith-Kanan flattened himself against the base of the tower. Above his head, narrow windows shone with the soft yellow light of oil lanterns. He uncoiled a thin, silk rope from around his waist. Hanging from his belt was an iron hook. He tied the rope to the eye of the hook, stepped out from the tower wall, and began to whirl the hook in an ever-widening circle. Then, with practiced ease, he let it fly. The hook sailed up to the third level of windows and caught on the jutting stonework beneath them. After giving the rope an experimental tug, Kith-Kanan started climbing up the wall, hand over hand, his feet braced against the thick stone of the tower.

The third level of windows-actually the sixth floor above ground level-was where his private room was located. Once he’d gained the narrow ledge where his hook had wedged, Kith-Kanan stood with his back flat against the wall, pausing to catch his breath. Around him, the city of Silvanost slept. The white temple towers, the palaces of the nobles, the monumental crystal tomb of Silvanos on its hill overlooking the city all stood out in the light of Krynn’s two visible moons. The lighted windows were like jewels, yellow topaz and white diamonds.

Kith-Kanan forced the window of his room open with the blade of his dagger. He stepped down from the sill onto his bed. The chill moonlight made his room seem pale and unfamiliar. Like all the rooms on this floor of the tower, Kith-Kanan’s was wedge-shaped, like a slice of pie. All the miscellaneous treasures of his boyhood were in this room: hunting trophies, a collection of shiny but worthless stones, scrolls describing the heroic deeds of Silvanos and Balif. All to be left behind, perhaps never to be seen or handled again.

He went first to the oaken wardrobe, standing by an inside wall. From under his breastplate he pulled a limp cloth sack, which he’d just bought from a fisher on the river. It smelled rather strongly of fish, but he had no time to be delicate. From the wardrobe he took only a few things-a padded leather tunic, a pair of heavy horse-riding boots, and his warmest set of leggings. Next he went to the chest at the foot of his bed.

With no concern for neatness, he stuffed spare clothing into the sack. Then, at the bottom of the chest, he found something he hadn’t wanted to find. Wrapped in a scrap of linen was the starjewel he’d bought for Hermathya. Once exposed, it glittered in the dim light.

Slowly he picked it up. His first reaction was to grind the delicate gem under his heel, but Kith-Kanan couldn’t bring himself to destroy the beautiful scarlet gem. Without knowing exactly why, he slipped it into the fisher’s bag.

From the rack by the door he took three items: a short but powerful recurved bow, a full quiver of arrows, and his favorite boar spear. Kith-Kanan’s scabbard hung empty at his side. His sword, forged by the priests of Kiri Jolith, he’d left in the Tower of the Stars.

The prince put the arrows and the unstrung bow in the sack and tied it to the boar spear. The whole bundle he slung from his shoulder. Now for the door.

The latch whispered backward in its slot. Kith-Kanan pulled the door open. Directly across from his room was Sithas’s sleeping chamber. A strip of light showed under his brother’s door. Kith-Kanan lowered his bundle to the floor and reached out for the door handle.

Sithas’s door opened silently. Inside, his white-robed twin was kneeling before a small table, on which a single cut rose lay. A candle burned on the fireplace mantle.

Sithas looked up. “Come in, Kith,” he said gently, “I was expecting you.” He stood, looking holloweyed and gaunt in the candlelight. “I felt your presence when you returned. Please, sit down.”

“I’m not staying,” Kith-Kanan replied bitterly.

“You need not leave, Kith. Beg Father for forgiveness. He will grant it.”

Kith-Kanan spread his hands. “I can’t, Sith. It wouldn’t matter if he did forgive me, I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Because of Hermathya?” asked Sithas. His twin nodded. “I don’t love her, Kith, but she was chosen. I must marry her.”

“But what about me? Do you care at all how I feel?”

Sithas’s face showed that he did. “But what would you have me do?”

“Tell them you won’t have her. Refuse to marry Hermathya.”

Sithas sighed. “It would be a grave insult to Clan Oakleaf, to our father, and to Hermathya herself. She was chosen because she will be the best wife for the future speaker.”

Kith-Kanan passed a hand over his fevered eyes. “This is like a terrible dream. I can’t believe Thya consented to all this.”

“Then you can go upstairs and ask her. She is sleeping in the room just above yours,” Sithas said evenly. Kith-Kanan turned to go. “Wait,” Sithas said. “Where will you go from here?”

“I will go far,” Kith-Kanan replied defiantly.

Sithas leaped to his feet. “How far will you get on your own? You are throwing away your heritage, Kith! Throwing it away like a gnawed apple core!”

Kith-Kanan stood still in the open doorway. “I’m doing the only honorable thing I can. Do you think

could continue to live here with you, knowing Hermathya was your wife? Do you think I could stand to see her each day and have to call her ‘Sister?’ I know I have shamed Father and myself. I can live with shame, but I cannot live in sight of Hermathya and not love her!”

He went out in the hall and stooped to get his bundle. Sithas raised the lid of a plain, dark, oak chest sitting at the foot of his bed.

“Kith, wait.” Sithas turned around and held out his brother’s sword. “Father was going to have it broken, he was so angry with you, but I persuaded him to let me keep it.”

Kith-Kanan took the slim, graceful blade from his brother’s hands. It slid home in his scabbard like a hand into a glove. Kith-Kanan instantly felt stronger. He had a part of himself back.

“Thank you, Sith.”

On a simultaneous impulse, they came together and clasped their hands on each other’s shoulders. “May the gods go with you, Brother,” said Sithas warmly.

“They will if you ask them,” Kith-Kanan replied wryly. “They listen to you.”

He crossed the hall to his old room and prepared to go out the window. Sithas came to his door and said, “Will I ever see you again?”

Kith-Kanan looked out at the two bright moons. “As long as Solinari and Lunitari remain in the same sky, I will-see you again, my brother.” Without another word, Kith-Kanan stepped out of the window and was gone. Sithas returned to his sparsely furnished room and shut the door.

As he knelt again at his small shrine to Matheri, he said softly, “Two halves of the same coin; two branches of the same tree.” He closed his eyes. “Matheri, keep him safe.”

On the ledge, Kith-Kanan gathered up his rope. The room just above his, Sithas had said. Very well then. His first cast fell short, and the hook came scraping down the stone right at his face. Kith-Kanan flinched aside, successfully dodging the hook, but he almost lost his balance on the narrow ledge. The falling hook clattered against the wall below. Kith-Kanan cursed soundlessly and hauled the rope back up.

The Tower of Quinari, like most elven spires, grew steadily narrower as it grew taller. The ledges at each level were thus correspondingly shallower. It took Kith-Kanan four tries to catch his hook on the seventh floor ledge. When he did, he swung out into the cool night air, wobbling under the burden of his sack and spear. Doggedly he climbed. The window of the room above his was dark. He carefully set the bundle against the outside wall and went to work on the window latch with his dagger.

The soft lead of the window frame yielded quickly to his blade. He pushed the crystal panes in.

Already he knew she was in the room. The spicy scent she always wore filled the room with a subtle perfume. He listened and heard short sighs of breathing. Hermathya was asleep.

He went unerringly to her bedside. Kith-Kanan put out a hand and felt the soft fire of her hair. He spoke her name once, quietly. “It is I, my love.”

“Kith! Please, don’t hurt me!”

He was taken aback. He rose off his knees. “I would never, ever hurt you, Thya.”

“But I thought-you were so angry-I thought you came here to kill me!”

“No,” he said gently. “I’ve come to take you with me.”

She sat up. Solinari peeked in the window just enough to throw a silver beam on her face and neck. From his place in the shadows, Kith-Kanan felt again the deep wound he’d suffered on her account.

“Go with you?” Hermathya said in genuine confusion. “Go where?”

“Does it matter?”

She pushed her long hair away from her face. “And what of Sithas?”

“He doesn’t love you,” Kith-Kanan said.

“Nor do I love him, but he is my betrothed now.”

Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean, you want to marry him?”

“Yes, I do.”

Kith-Kanan blundered backward to the window. He sat down hard on the sill. It seemed as though his legs would not work right. The cool night air washed over him, and he breathed deeply.

“You cannot mean it. What about us? I thought you loved me!”

Hermathya walked into the edge of the shaft of moonlight. “I do, Kith. But the gods have decided that I shall be the wife of the next Speaker of the Stars.” A note of pride crept into her voice.

“This is madness!” Kith-Kanan burst out. “It was my father who decided this marriage, not the gods!”

“We are all only instruments of the gods,” she said coolly. “I love you, Kith, but the time has come to lay aside pranks and secret garden passions. I have spoken with my father, with your father. You and I had an exciting time together, we dreamed beautiful dreams. But that’s all they were-dreams. It’s time to wake up now and think of the future. Of the future of all Silvanesti.”

All Kith-Kanan could think of at this moment was his own future. “I can’t live without you, Thya,” he said weakly.

“Yes, you can. You may not know it yet, but you can.” She came toward him, and the moonlight made her nightdress no more than a cobweb. Kith-Kanan squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into tight fists.

“Please,” Hermathya said. “Accept what will happen. We can still be close.” Her warm hand touched his cold, dry cheek.

Kith-Kanan seized her wrist and shoved her away. “I cannot accept it,” he said tersely, stepping up on the windowsill. “Farewell, Lady Hermathya. May your life be green and golden.”

The irony of his words was not lost on her. ‘May your life be green and golden’ was what elven commoners said when taking leave of their lords.

Kith-Kanan shouldered his sack and slipped over the stone ledge. Hermathya stood for several seconds, gazing at the empty window. When the tears came she did not fight them.

*

Faithful Arcuballis was his only companion now. Kith-Kanan tied the sack to the saddle pillion and stuck the boar spear into the lance cup by his right stirrup. He mounted Arcuballis, strapped himself to the saddle, and turned the beast’s head into the wind.

“Fly!” he cried, touching his heels into the griffon’s brawny breast. “Fly!”

Arcuballis unfolded its wings and sprang into the air. Kith-Kanan whistled, and the griffon uttered its shrill cry. The least he could do, Kith-Kanan decided, was to let them know he was going. He whistled again and once more the griffon’s trilling growl echoed between the white towers.

Kith-Kanan put the waxing red moon on his right hand and flew southwest, across the Thon-Thalas. The royal road stood out misty gray in the night, angling away north from the city and south to the seacoast. Kith-Kanan urged the griffon higher and faster. The road, the river, and the city that had been his home vanished behind them. Ahead lay only darkness and an endless sea of trees, green-black in the depths of night.

Chapter 3

THE NEXT DAY

Kith-Kanan had no plans except to get away from Silvanost. More than anything, he craved solitude right now. He pointed Arcuballis’s beak southwest, and gave the griffon its head.

Kith-Kanan dozed in the saddle, slumped forward over the griffon’s feathered neck. The loyal beast flew on all night, never straying from the course its master had set. Dawn came, and Kith-Kanan awoke, stiff and groggy. He sat up in the saddle and surveyed the land below. There was nothing but treetops as far as the eye could see. He saw no clearings, streams, or meadows, much less signs of habitation.

How far they had flown during the night Kith-Kanan could not guess. He knew from hunting trips down the Thon-Thalas that south of Silvanost lay the Courrain Ocean, the boundaries of which no elf knew. But he was in the East; the rising sun was almost directly ahead of him. He must be in the great forest that lay between the Thon-Thalas on the east and the plains of Kharolis to the west.

He’d never ventured this far before.

Looking at the impenetrable canopy of trees, Kith-Kanan licked his dry lips and said aloud, “Well, boy, if things don’t change, we can always walk across the trees.”

They flew for hours more, crisscrossing the leafy barrier and finding no openings whatsoever. Poor Arcuballis was laboring, panting in deep, dry grunts. The griffon had been flying all night and half the day. When Kith-Kanan lifted his head to scan the horizon, he spied a thin column of smoke rising from the forest, far off to his left. The prince turned Arcuballis toward the smoke. The gap closed with agonizing slowness.

Finally, he could see that a ragged hole had been torn in the tapestry of the forest. In the center of the hole, the gnarled trunk of a great tree stood, blackened and burning. Lightning had struck it. The burned opening was only ten yards wide, but around the base of the burning tree the ground was clear and level. Arcuballis’s feet touched down, its wings trembled, and the beast shuddered. Immediately the exhausted griffon closed its eyes to sleep.

Kith-Kanan untied his sack from the pillion. He crossed the narrow clearing with the sack over one shoulder. Dropping to his feet, he squatted down and started to unpack. The caw of a crow caught his ear. Looking up at the splintered, smoldering trunk of the shattered tree, he spied a single black bird perched on a charred limb. The crow cocked its head and cawed again. Kith-Kanan went back to his unpacking as the crow lifted off the limb, circled the clearing, and flew off.

He took out his bow and quiver, and braced a new bowstring. Though only three feet long when strung, the powerful recursive bow could put an iron-tipped arrow through a thick tree trunk. Kith-Kanan tied the quiver to his belt. Taking the stout boar spear in both hands, he jammed it as high as he could into the burned tree. He stuffed his belongings back in the sack and hung the sack from the spear shaft. That ought to keep his things safe from prowling animals.

Kith-Kanan squinted into the late afternoon sun. Using it as a guide, he decided to strike out to the north a short distance to see if he could flush any game. Arcuballis was safe enough, he figured; few predators would dare tangle with a griffon. He put his back to the shattered tree and dove into the deeply shadowed forest.

Though the elf prince was used to the woods, at least the woods around Silvanost, he found this forest strangely different. The trees were widely spaced, but their thick foliage made it nearly as dim as twilight down below. So dense was the roof of leaves, the forest floor was nearly barren. Some ferns and bracken grew between the great trees, but no heavy undergrowth. The soil was thickly carpeted with dead leaves and velvety moss. And even though the high branches stirred in the wind, it was very still where Kith-Kanan walked. Very still indeed. Rings of red-gilled mushrooms, a favorite food of deer and wild boar, grew undisturbed around the bases of the trees. The silence soon grew oppressive.

Kith-Kanan paused a hundred paces from the clearing and drew his sword. He cut a hunter’s sign, a “blaze,” into the gray-brown bark of a hundred-foot-high oak tree. Beneath the bark, the white flesh of the tree was hard and tough. The elven blade chipped away at it, and the sound of iron on wood echoed through the forest. His marker made, Kith-Kanan sheathed his sword and continued on, bow in hand.

The forest seemed devoid of animals. Except for the crow he’d seen, no other creature, furred or winged, showed itself. Every thirty yards or so he made another blaze so as not to lose his way, for the darkness was increasing. It was at least four hours until sunset, yet the shadowed recesses of the forest were dimming to twilight. Kith-Kanan mopped the sweat from his brow and knelt in the fallen leaves. He brushed them aside, looking for signs of grazing by deer or wild pigs. The moss was unbroken.

By the time Kith-Kanan had made his tenth blaze, it was dark as night. He leaned against an ash tree and tried to see through the closely growing branches overhead. At this point he’d just as soon have squirrel for dinner as venison. That was growing more likely, too.

Tiny points of sunlight filtered through the leaves, dancing as the wind stirred the branches. It was almost like seeing the stars, only these points of light moved. The effect was quite hypnotic, which only made Kith-Kanan more tired than he already was. He’d dozed only fitfully in the saddle and had eaten nearly nothing since the day before. Perhaps he’d stop for a moment. Take a bit of rest. Overhead the points of light danced and swayed.

Kith-Kanan’s sword, resting in the crook of his arm, slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground, sticking point first in the soft soil.

Points of light. Dancing. How very tired he was! His knees folded, and he slid slowly down the trunk until he was sitting on his haunches, back against the tree. His gaze remained on the canopy of leaves overhead. What an odd forest this was. Not like home. Not like the woods of SilvanostD

As in a dream, the prince saw the airy corridors of the Palace of Quinari. The servants bowed to him, as they always did. He was on his way to a feast in the Hall of Balif. There would be simmered roasts, legs of lamb, fruits dripping with juice, fragrant sauces, and delicious drafts of sweet nectar.

Kith-Kanan came to a door. It was just a door, like any other in the palace. He pushed the door open, and there, in loving embrace, were Sithas and Hermathya. She turned to face him, a smile on her face. A smile for Sithas.

“No!”

He leaped forward, landing on his hands and knees. His legs were completely numb. It was pitch dark around him, and for a few seconds Kith-Kanan didn’t know where he was. He breathed deeply. Night must have fallen, he realized. But the dream had seemed so real! The elf’s senses told him he’d broken some spell, one that had come over him as he looked at the patterns of light and shadow up in the trees. He must have been dreaming for hours.

After a long minute waiting for the feeling to return to his legs, Kith-Kanan cast about for his sword. He found it sticking in the moss. He freed the weapon and shoved it into its scabbard. A vague sense of urgency turned him back to the blasted clearing. His last blaze was visible in the night, but the second to last was almost gone. New bark was covering the cut he’d made. The next mark was a mere slit, and the one after that he found only because he remembered the oddly forked trunk of the ash tree he’d hacked it into. There were no more to find after that. The cuts had healed.

For a moment the elf prince knew fear. He was lost in the silent forest at night, hungry, thirsty, and alone. Had enough time passed for the cuts to heal naturally, or was the grove enchanted? Even the darkness that surrounded him seemed, well, darker than usual. Not even his elven eyesight could penetrate very far.

Then the training and education of a prince reasserted itself, banishing much of the fear. Kith-Kanan, grandson of the great Silvanos, was not about to be bested on his first night in the wilderness.

He found a dry branch and set about making a torch to light his way back to the clearing. After gathering a pile of dead leaves for tinder, Kith-Kanan pulled out his flint and striker. To his surprise, no sparks flew off the iron bar when he grated the flint against it. He tried and tried, but all the fire seemed to have gone out of the flint.

There was a flutter of black wings overhead. Kith-Kanan leaped to his feet in time to see a flock of crows take up perches on a limb just out of reach. The dozen birds watched him with unnerving intelligence.

“Shoo!” he yelled, flinging a useless branch at them. The crows flapped up and, when the branch had passed, settled again in the same place and posture.

He pocketed his flint and striker. The crows followed his movements with unblinking eyes. Tired and bewildered, he addressed the birds directly. “I don’t suppose you can help me find my way back, can you?”

One by one, the birds took wing and disappeared into the night. Kith-Kanan sighed. I must be getting desperate if I’m talking to birds, he concluded. After drawing his sword, he set off again, cutting new blazes as he hunted for the clearing where he had left Arcuballis. That way, at least he could avoid walking in circles.

He smote the nearest elm twice, chipping out palm-sized bits of bark. He was about to strike a third time when he noticed the shadow of his sword arm against the gray tree trunk. Shadow? In this well of ink? Kith-Kanan turned quickly, sword ready. Floating six feet off the ground, more than a dozen feet away, was a glowing mass the size of a wine barrel. He watched, half anxious, half curious, as the glowing light came toward him. It halted two feet from his face, and Kith-Kanan could clearly see what it was.

The cool yellow mass of light was a swarm of fireflies. The insects flew in circles around each other, creating a moving lamp for the lost prince. Kith-Kanan stared at them in shock. The glowing mass moved forward a few yards and halted. Kith-Kanan took a step toward them, and they moved on a bit farther.

“Are you leading me back to the clearing?” the prince asked in wonder. In response, the fireflies moved another yard forward. Kith-Kanan followed warily, but grateful for the soft sphere of light the fireflies cast around him.

In minutes, they had led him back to the clearing. The blasted tree was just as he remembered – but Arcuballis was gone. Kith-Kanan ran to the spot where the griffon had lain to rest. The leaves and moss still carried the impression of the heavy beast, but that was all. Kith-Kanan was astonished.

He couldn’t believe Arcuballis had flown off without him. Royal griffons were bonded to their riders, and no more loyal creatures existed on Krynn. There were tales of riders dying, and their griffons following them into death out of sheer grief. Someone or something must have taken Arcuballis. But who? Or what? How could such a powerful creature be subdued without sign of a struggle?

Sick in his heart, Kith-Kanan wandered to the lightningseared tree. More bad news! His boar spear remained stuck in the trunk, but the sack containing his possessions was~gone. Angrily, he reached up and wrenched the spear free. He stood in the clearing, gazing at the dark circle of trees. Now he was truly alone. He and Arcuballis had been companions for many years. More than a means of transport, the griffon was a trusted friend.

He sagged to the ground, feeling utterly wretched. What could he do? He couldn’t even find his way around the forest in broad daylight. Kith-Kanan’s eyes brimmed, but he steadfastly refused to weep like some abandoned child.

The fireflies remained by his head. They darted forward, then back, as if reminding him they were there.

“Get away!” he snarled as they swooped scant inches from his nose. The swarm instantly dispersed. The fireflies flew off in all directions, their tiny lights flitting here and there, and then were gone.

*

“Won’t you come in? You’ll catch a chill.”

Sithel drew a woolen mantle up over his shoulders. “I am warmly dressed,” he said. His wife pulled a blanket off their bed, wrapped it around her own shoulders, and stepped out on the balcony with him.

Sithel’s long white hair lifted off his neck as a chill wind passed over the palace tower. The private rooms of the speaker and his consort took up the penultimate floor of the palace’s tower. Only the Tower of the Stars provided a higher vantage point in Silvanost.

“I felt a faint cry not long ago,” Sithel said. “Kith-Kanan?” The speaker nodded. “Do you think he is in danger?” asked Nirakina, drawing her blanket more closely about herself.

“I think he is unhappy. He must be very far away. The feeling was faint.”

Nirakina looked up at her husband. “Call him, Sithel. Call him home.”

“I will not. He offended me, and he offended the noble assembly. He broke one of our most sacred laws by drawing a weapon inside the Tower of the Stars.”

“These things can be forgiven,” she said quietly. “What else is it that makes it so hard for you to forgive him?”

Sithel stroked his wife’s soft hair. “I might have done what he did, had my father given the woman I loved to another. But I don’t approve of his deed, and I will not call him home. If I did, he wouldn’t learn the discipline he must have. Let him stay away a while. His life here has been too easy, and the outside world will teach him to be strong and patient.”

“I’m afraid for him,” Nirakina said. “The world beyond Silvanost is a deadly place.”

Sithel raised her chin so their eyes met. “He has the blood of Silvanos in his veins. Kith-Kanan will survive, beloved, survive and prosper.” Sithel looked away, out at the dark city. He held out his arm. “Come, let us go in.”

They lay down together, as they had for more than a thousand years. But while Nirakina soon fell asleep, Sithel lay awake, worrying.

Chapter 4

THREE DAYS LATER

After three sunrises, Kith-Kanan was in despair. He’d lost his griffon and his spare clothing. When he tried his flint and striker again, he managed to start a small fire. It comforted him somewhat, but he found no food whatsoever to cook. On his third morning in the forest, he ran out of water, too.

There was no point remaining in the clearing, so he shouldered his spear and set out to find food and water. If the maps he remembered were correct, the Kharolis River lay to the west. It might be many miles, but at least it was something to aim for.

The only animals he saw on the way were more crows. The black birds stayed with him, flitting from tree to tree, punctuating their flight with short, sharp caws. The crows were Kith-Kanan’s only company, so he started talking to them. It helped keep his spirits up.

“I don’t suppose you know where my griffon is?” he asked. Not surprisingly, the birds didn’t answer, but continued to fly from tree to tree, keeping up with him.

The day dragged on and grew hotter. Even down in the eternal shade of the deep forest, Kith-Kanan sweltered, because no breeze stirred the air. The lay of the land grew rougher, too, with hills and gullies running north to south along his line of march. This encouraged him at first, because very often springs and brooks could be found at the bottom of ravines. But as he scrambled up one hill and down another, he found only moss and stones and fallen trees.

After skidding down a hillside into the nineteenth gully, Kith-Kanan paused to rest. He sat on a fallen tree, dropping the spear in front of him. He licked his dry lips again and fought down the rising feeling that he had made a grave mistake by running away. How could he have been so foolish to abandon his life of privilege for this? As soon as he asked himself the question the vision of Hermathya marrying his brother rose up in his mind, horribly vivid. Pain and loss welled up inside. To dispel the image, he stood up abruptly and started off again, shouldering his boar spear. He took two steps across the bottom of the ravine, and his feet sank an inch or so into mud, covered by a thin layer of dead leaves.

Where there’s mud, there’s water, he realized happily. Kith-Kanan went along the ravine to his right, looking for the water that must be there somewhere. He could see the ravine widen up ahead. Perhaps there was a pool, a pool of clear, sweet water....

The ravine converged on several others, making a steepsided bowl in the hills. Kith-Kanan slogged through the increasingly wet mud. He could smell water ahead. Then he could see it Da small pool, undisturbed by a ripple. The sight drew him like magic. The mud rose above his knees but he plunged on, right to the center of the pool. Cupping his hands, he filled them with water and raised them to his lips.

Immediately he spit the water out again. It tasted vile, like rotted leaves. Kith-Kanan stared down at his reflection in the water. His face twisted with frustrated rage. It was no use. He would just have to keep going.

His leg wouldn’t come up out of the pool. He tried the other. It was also stuck. He strained so hard to pull them up, he nearly lost his balance. Arms flailing, Kith-Kanan twisted his hips from side to side, trying to work himself free. Instead he sank deeper into the mire. He glanced around quickly for a tree branch to grab, or a trailing vine. The nearest trees were ten feet away.

The mud was soon up to his waist. He began to sink even faster. “Help!” he cried desperately. “Is there anyone to hear?”

A flock of crows settled on the hillside facing Kith-Kanan. They watched with unnerving calm as he foundered in the killing mud.

You won’t pick my eyes, he vowed silently. When the end comes, I’ll duck under the mud before I let you black carrion eaters pick me over.

“They’re not really so bad once you get to know them,” said a voice. Kith-Kanan jerked as if struck by lightning.

“Who’s there?” he shouted, looking around at the still trees. “Help!”

“I can help you. I don’t know that I will.” It was a high, childish voice, full of smugness.

In replying, the speaker had given himself away. Kith-Kanan spotted him, to his left, in a tree.

Sitting comfortably on a thick branch, his back propped against the ancient oak trunk, was a slender young person, clad in mottled green-brown tunic and hose. A hood was drawn up over his head. The tan face that showed under the hood was painted with loops and lines, done in bright red and yellow pigment.

“Help me!” Kith-Kanan shouted. “I can reward you handsomely!”

“Really? What with?”

“Gold. Silver. Jewels.” Anything, he vowed to himself. Anything in all of Krynn.

“What is gold?”

The mud was halfway up Kith-Kanan’s chest. The pressure against his body made it difficult to draw breath. “You’re mocking me,” he gasped. “Please! I haven’t much time!”

“No, you haven’t,” noted the hooded figure uninterestedly. “What else would you give me if I help you?”

“My bow! Would you like that?”

“I can pick that out of the mire once you’re gone.”

Blast the fellow! “I haven’t anything else!” The cold muck was nearly at his shoulders. “Please, for the gods’ sake, help me!”

The hooded figure rolled nimbly forward onto his feet. “I will help you, for the gods’ sake. They often do things for me, so it seems only fair I do something for their sake now and again.”

The stranger walked heel to toe along the branch until he was almost directly over Kith-Kanan. The prince’s shoulders were in the mud, though he held his arms above his head to keep them free until the last possible second. The fellow in the tree unwrapped a belt from his waist. It had circled his slim body several times and, when unwound, was over ten feet long. Lying flat on the branch, he lowered the leather strap to Kith-Kanan. The prince caught it in his left hand.

“What are you waiting for? Pull me out!” Kith-Kanan ordered.

“If you can’t pull yourself out, I cannot do it for you,” his rescuer remarked. He looped the belt around the tree limb a few times and secured it with a knot. Then he lay on the branch, his head propped on one hand, awaiting the outcome.

Kith-Kanan grimaced and started to haul himself out by the strap. With much gasping and cursing, Kith-Kanan climbed out of the deadly mire and pulled himself up to the tree branch. He threw a leg over the branch and lay panting.

“Thank you,” he finally said, a little sarcastically.

The young fellow had moved several feet back toward the oak tree and sat with his knees drawn up. “You’re welcome,” he replied. Behind the barbarous face paint, his eyes were brilliant green. He pushed back his hood, revealing himself to be a boy with a shock of bone-white hair. His high cheekbones and tapered ears bespoke his heritage. Kith-Kanan sat up slowly, astride the branch.

“You are Silvanesti,” he said, startled.

“No, I am Mackeli.”

Kith-Kanan shook his head. “You are of the race of the Silvanesti, as am I.”

The elf boy stood on the branch. “I don’t know what you mean. I am Mackeli.”

The branch was too narrow for Kith-Kanan to stand on, so he inched his way forward to the tree trunk. The deadly mud below was hidden once more under its covering of water. He shuddered as he looked down upon it. “You see we are alike, don’t you?”

Mackeli, hopping nimbly along the branch, glanced back at Kith-Kanan and said, “No. I don’t see that we are alike.”

Exasperated and too tired to continue, Kith-Kanan gave up that line of conversation.

They climbed down to solid ground. Kith-Kanan followed the scampering boy slowly. Even so, he lost his grip on the trunk and fell the last few feet. He landed on his rear with a thud and groaned.

“You are clumsy,” Mackeli observed.

“And you are rude. Do you know who I am?” the prince said haughtily.

“A clumsy outlander.” The elf boy reached around his back and brought back a gourd bottle, laced tightly with deerskin. He poured a trickle of clear water into his open mouth. Kith-Kanan watched intently, his throat moving with imaginary swallows.

“May I – may I have some water?” he pleaded.

Mackeli shrugged and handed him the bottle. Kith-Kanan took the gourd in his muddy hands and drank greedily. He drained the bottle in three gulps.

“May the gods bless you,” he said, handing the empty container to the boy.

Mackeli upended the bottle, saw that it was indeed completely dry, and gave Kith-Kanan a disgusted look.

“I haven’t had any water in two days,” Kith-Kanan explained. “Nor have I eaten. Do you have any food?”

“Not with me. There is some at home.”

“Would you take me there?”

Mackeli raised his hood again, hiding his startlingly white hair. With it covered, he was superbly camouflaged, blending into the forest. “Won’t know if that would be right. Ny might not like it.”

“I appeal to you, friend. I am desperate. I have lost my steed and my way, and I cannot seem to find any game in this accursed forest. If you don’t help me, I shall starve in this wilderness.”

The elf boy laughed, a pleasant sound in the still air. “Yes, I heard there was an outlander blundering about in these parts. The corvae told me about you.”

“Corvae?”

Mackeli pointed to the crows, still watching from the nearby hillside. “They know everything that happens in the forest. Sometimes, when something strange occurs, they tell me and Ny about it.”

Kith-Kanan remembered the unnerving attention the crows had paid him. “Do you truly speak with birds?”

“Not only birds.” Mackeli held up a hand and made a shrill cawing sound. One of the black birds flew over and alighted on his arm, like a falcon returning to its master.

“What do you think?” the boy asked the bird. “Can I trust him?” The crow cocked its head and uttered a single sharp screech. Mackeli frowned. The whorls above his eyes contracted as he knitted his brow together.

“He says you carry an object of power. He says you cut the trees with it.”

Kith-Kanan looked down at his mud-caked scabbard. “My sword is not magical,” he said. “It’s just an ordinary blade. Here, you can hold it.” He reversed his grip and held the pommel out to Mackeli. The elf boy reached out tentatively. The crows chorused as if in warning, but Mackeli ignored them. His small hand closed over the diamond-shaped pommel.

“There is power here,” he said, snatching his hand back. “It smells like death!”

“Take it in your hands,” Kith-Kanan urged. “It won’t hurt you.”

Mackeli grasped the handle in both hands and lifted it out of the prince’s hand. “So heavy! What is it made of?” he grunted.

“Iron and brass.” Mackeli’s face showed that he did not know iron or brass, gold or silver. “Do you know what metals are, Mackeli?”

“No.” He tried to swing Kith-Kanan’s sword, but it was too heavy for him to control. The point dropped to the ground.

“I thought as much.” Gently the prince took the sword back and slid it into its sheath. “Are you satisfied I’m not dangerous?”

Mackeli sniffed his hands and made a face. “I never said you were dangerous,” he said airily. “Except maybe to yourself.”

He set off and kept up a brisk pace, slipping in and out of the big trees. Mackeli never walked straight more than a few yards. He pushed off from the massive trunks, hopped over fallen limbs, and scampered like a squirrel. Kith-Kanan trudged along, weighed down by hunger and several pounds of stinking mud. Several times Mackeli had to double back to find the prince and guide him along. Kith-Kanan watched the boy’s progress through the forest and felt like a tired old man. He’d thought he was such a fine ranger. This boy, who could be no more than sixty years old, made the foresters of Silvanost look like blundering drunkards.

The trek lasted hours and followed no discernible path. Kith-Kanan got the strong impression Mackeli didn’t want him to know where they were going.

There were elves who dwelt entirely in the wilderness, the Kagonesti. They were given to the practice of painting their skin with strange patterns, as Mackeli did. But they were dark-skinned and dark-haired; this boy’s features were pure Silvanesti. Kith-Kanan asked himself why a boy of the pure blood should be out here in the deep forest. Runaway? Member of a lost tribe? He finally imagined a secret forest hideaway, inhabited by outlaws driven from Silvanesti by his grandfather Silvanos’s wars of unification. Not everyone had followed the great leader to peace and unity.

Suddenly Kith-Kanan realized that he no longer heard Mackeli’s light tread in the carpet of fallen leaves. Halting, he looked ahead, then spied the boy a score of yards away, on his right. Mackeli was kneeling, his head bowed low. A hush had fallen over the already quiet forest.

As he observed the boy, wonderingly, a feeling of utter peace flowed over Kith-Kanan, a peace he’d never known before. All the troubles of recent days were washed away. Then Kith-Kanan turned and saw what had brought this tranquility, what had brought Mackeli to his knees.

Framed by ferns and tree trunks wrapped in flowering vines was a magnificent animal with a single white horn spiraling from its head. A unicorn – rarest of the rare, more scarce than the gods themselves. The unicorn was snowy white from her small, cloven hooves to the tips of her foaming mane. She radiated a soft light that seemed the essence of peace. Standing on a slight rise of ground, fifteen yards away, her eyes met Kith--Kanan’s and touched his soul.

The elf prince sank to his knees. He knew he was being granted a rare privilege, a glimpse of a creature thought by many to be only legend.

“Rise, noble warrior.” Kith-Kanan raised his head. “Rise, son of Sithel.” The voice was deep and melodic. Mackeli, still bowed, gave no sign that he had heard.

Kith-Kanan stood slowly. “You know me, great one?”

“I heard of your coming.” So enticing was the majestic creature, he wanted very badly to approach her, to see her more closely, to touch her. Before he could put the thought into action, she said sharply, “Stand where you are! It is not permitted for you to come too near.” Kith-Kanan involuntarily took a step back. “Son of Sithel, you have been chosen for an important task. I brought you and the boy Mackeli together, so he could be your guide in the forest. He is a good boy, much skilled in the ways of beast and bird. He will serve you well!”

“What do you wish me to do?” Kith-Kanan asked with sudden humility.

The unicorn tossed her head, sending pearly waves of mane cascading along her neck. “This deep forest is the oldest in the land. It was here that leaf and limb, animal and bird first lived. The spirits of the land are strong here, but they are vulnerable, too. For five thousand risings of the sun special ones have lived in the forest, protecting it from despoilers. Now a band of interlopers has come to this land, bringing fire and death with them. The spirits of the old forest cry out for help to me, and I have found you as the answer. You are the fated one, the one who carries iron. You must drive the despoilers out, son of Sithel.”

At that moment, Kith-Kanan would have fought armies of dragons had the unicorn but asked. “Where will I find these interlopers?” he said, his hand coming to the pommel of his sword.

The unicorn took a step backward. “There is another, who lives with the boy. Together, you three shall cleanse the forest.”

The unicorn took another step backward, and the forest itself seemed to close around her. Her alabaster aura shone briefly, and then she was gone, vanished into the secret depths of the greenwood.

After a few seconds Kith-Kanan recovered himself and ran to Mackeli. When he touched the boy’s shoulder, Mackeli shook himself as if coming out of a trance.

“Where is the Forestmaster?” he whispered.

“Gone,” said Kith-Kanan regretfully. “She spoke to me!”

A look of awe spread over Mackeli’s sharp face. “You are greatly favored, outlander! What did the Forestmaster say?”

“You didn’t hear?” Mackeli shook his head. Apparently the unicorn’s message was for him alone.

He wondered how much to tell the boy and finally decided to keep his own counsel.

“You are to take me to your camp,” he said firmly. “I will need to learn everything you know about living in the woods.”

“That I will gladly teach you,” Mackeli said. He shivered with excitement. “In all my life, I have never seen the Forestmaster! There were times I sensed her passing, but never have I been so close!” He grasped Kith-Kanan’s hand. “Come! Let’s hurry. I can’t wait to tell Ny about this!”

Kith-Kanan glanced at the spot where the Forestmaster had stood. Flowers had burst up where her hooves had touched the ground. Before he could react, Mackeli had jerked him into motion. At breakneck speed, the sure-footed boy drew Kith-Kanan deeper into the forest. The undergrowth got thicker, the trees larger and closer together, yet Mackeli never faltered. At times he and Kith-Kanan had to wriggle through gaps in the trees so tight and low they had to go on hands and knees.

Just before sunset, when the crickets had begun to sing, Mackeli reached a large clearing and stopped.

“We are home,” said the boy.

Kith-Kanan went to the center of the open space, more than forty paces across, and turned a circle on one heel. “What home?” he asked.

Mackeli grinned, the effect weirdly emphasized by the red lines of paint dabbed on his cheeks. Jauntily he walked forward to the base of a truly massive oak. He grasped at a patch of relatively smooth bark and pulled. A door opened in the trunk of the tree, a door made from a curving section of oak bark. Beyond the open door was a dark space. Mackeli waved to Kith-Kanan.

“Come in. This is home,” the boy said as he stepped into the hollow tree.

Kith-Kanan had to duck to clear the low opening. It smelled like wood and spice inside, pleasant but strange to his city-bred nose. It was so black he could barely make out the dim curve of the wooden walls. Of Mackeli he could see nothing.

And then the boy’s hand touched his, and Kith-Kanan flinched like a frightened child. “Light a candle or a lamp, will you?” he said, embarrassed.

“Do what?”

“Light a – never mind. Can you make a fire, Mackeli? I can’t see a thing in here.”

“Only Ny can make fire.”

“Is Ny here?”

“No. Gone hunting, I think.”

Kith-Kanan groped his way along the wall. ‘Where does Ny build his fires?” he asked.

“Here.” Mackeli led him to the center of the room. Kith-Kanan’s foot bumped a low hearth made of rocks plastered together with mud. He squatted down and felt the ashes. Stone cold. No one had used it in quite a while.

“If you get me some kindling, I’ll make a fire,” he offered.

“Only Ny can make fire,” Mackeli repeated doubtfully.

“Well, I may not be the stealthiest tracker or the best forester, but, by Astarin, I can make fire!”

They went back out and gathered armfuls of windblown twigs and small, dead branches. A weak bit of light cut into the hollow tree through the open door as Kith-Kanan arranged the dry sticks in a cone over a heap of bark and shavings he had whittled off with his dagger. He took out his flint and striker from the pouch at his waist. Leaning on his knees on the stone hearth, he nicked the flint against the roughened iron striker. Sparks fell on the tinder, and he blew gently on them. In a few minutes he had a weak flicker of flame and not long after that, a crackling fire.

“Well, boy, what do you think of that?” the prince asked Mackeli.

Instead of being impressed, Mackeli shook his head. “Ny’s not going to like this.”

Lightened by the fire, the interior of the hollow tree was finally visible to Kith-Kanan. The room was quite large, five paces wide, and a ladder led up through a hole to the upper branches and the outside of the tree. Smoke from the fire also went out through this hole. The walls were decorated with the skulls of animals – rabbit, squirrel, a fierce-looking boar with upthrust tusks, a magnificent eight-point buck, plus a host of bird skulls Kith-Kanan could not identify. Mackeli explained that whenever Ny killed an animal not killed before, the skull was cleaned and mounted on a peg on the wall. That way the spirit of the dead beast was propitiated and the god of the forest, the Blue Phoenix, would grant success to future hunts.

“Which of these did you kill?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“It is not permitted for me to shed the blood of animals. That’s Ny’s work.” The elf boy slipped back his hood. “I talk to the animals and listen to what they say. I do not shed their blood.”

Kith-Kanan sat down on a pallet filled with moss. He was weary and dirty and very hungry.

Mackeli fidgeted about, giving the prince frequent looks of displeasure. Eventually, Kith-Kanan asked Mackeli what was wrong.

“That’s Ny’s place. You must not sit there,” the boy said irritatedly.

Kith-Kanan heaved himself off. “This Ny has more privileges than the Speaker of the Stars,” he said, exasperation clearing his voice. “May I sit here?” He indicated the floor of the hollow tree, which was covered with pine needles. Mackeli nodded.

Soon after that exchange, Kith-Kanan asked for something to eat. The elf boy scampered up the ladder and, leaning out to the center of the hollow space, pushed aside various gourds and skin bags that hung by thongs from the ceiling. He found the one he wanted and brought it down. Sitting cross-legged beside Kith-Kanan, Mackeli bade the prince hold out his hands. He did, and the boy filled them with roasted wild chestnuts, neatly peeled.

“Do you have any meat?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“Only Ny eats meat.”

The prince was getting tired of the litany of things only Ny could do. Too tired, in fact, to dispute with the boy, Kith-Kanan ate chestnuts in silence. He was grateful for whatever he could get.

“Do you know,” he said at last, “you’ve never asked me my name?”

Mackeli shrugged. “I didn’t think you had one.”

“Of course I have a name!” The elf boy rubbed his nose, getting yellow paint on his fingers. “My name is Kith,” the prince said, since Mackeli obviously wasn’t going to ask.

Mackeli shook more chestnuts into his paint-stained palm. “That’s a funny name,” he noted and popped a chestnut into his mouth.

Chapter 5

FIVE WEEKS LATER

“Lady Nerakina, wife of the Speaker,” announced the maidservant. Hermathya looked up from her mirror and nodded. The servant opened the door.

“Time is short, Lady,” Nirakina cautioned as she entered.

“I know.” Hermathya stood motionless in the center of a maelstrom of activity. Servants, dressmakers, and perfumers dodged and weaved around her, each trying to make final, finishing touches before the wedding ceremony began.

“You look beautiful,” Nirakina said, and she was not merely being polite to her daughter-to-be. The finest creators of beauty in Silvanost had labored for weeks to make Hermathya’s wedding gown and to compound the special oils and perfumes that would be hers alone.

The gown was in two parts. The first was an overdress in sheerest linen, too light to be worn alone and maintain modesty. Beneath this, Hermathya was wrapped in a single swath of golden cloth, many yards long. Six members of the Seamstress Guild had begun the winding Hermathya wore at her neck. A huge drum of gold was slowly wound around her, closely over her breasts and torso, more loosely over hips and legs. She had been forced to stand with her arms raised for two hours while the elf women worked.

Her feet were covered by sandals made from a single sheet of gold, beaten so thin it felt and flexed like the most supple leather. Golden laces crisscrossed her legs from ankle to knee, securing the sandals.

The elf’s hair and face had been worked over, too. Gone were the maidenly braids framing her face. Her coppery hair was waved, then spread around her shoulders. In the elven custom, it was the husband who gave his new wife the first of the clasps with which she would ever after bind her tresses.

The bride’s skin was smoothed of every roughness or blemish with aromatic oils and bone-thin soapstone. Her nails were polished and gilded, and her lips were painted golden. As befitted her noble rank and wealthy family, Hermathya wore sixteen bracelets – ten on her right arm and six on her left. These were all gifts from her parents, her siblings, and her female friends.

“That’s enough,” Nirakina said to the agitated servants. “Leave us.” With much bowing and flourishing, the mob funneled out the doors of the Hall of Balif. “All of you,” said the speaker’s wife. The regular palace servants withdrew, closing the doors behind them.

“So much work for such a brief ceremony,” Hermathya said. She turned ever so slowly, so as not to disturb her hair or gown. “Is this as great as your wedding, Lady?”

“Greater. Sithel and I were married during the Second Dragon War, when there was no time or gold to spare on fancy things. We didn’t know then if we’d be alive in a year, much less know if we’d have an heir to see married.”

“I have heard stories of those times. It must have been terrible.”

“The times make those who live in them,” Nirakina said evenly. Her own dress, as the speaker’s wife and mother of the groom, was quite conservative – white silk embroidered in silver and gold with the arms of House Royal. But with her honey-brown hair and liquid eyes she had a serene beauty all her own.

There was a loud, very masculine knock at the door. Nirakina said calmly, “Come in.”

A splendidly attired warrior entered the hall. His armor was burnished until it was almost painful to look at. Scarlet plumes rose from his helmet. His scabbard was empty – the ceremony was one of peace, so no weapons were allowed – but his fierce martial splendor was no less imposing.

“My ladies,” announced the warrior, “I am Kencathedrus, chosen by Lord Sithas to escort you to the Tower of the Stars.”

“I know you, Kencathedrus,” replied Nirakina. “You trained Prince Kith-Kanan in the warrior arts, did you not?”

“I did, my lady.”

Hermathya was glad she was facing away. Mention of Kith-Kanan brought a rush of color to her powdered face. It wasn’t so much that she still loved him, she decided. No, she was over that, if she ever did truly love him. But she knew that Kencathedrus, a mere soldier, was performing the duty Kith-Kanan should be doing. To escort the bride was a duty brother owed to brother.

Hermathya composed herself. This was the moment. She turned. “I am ready.”

In the corridor outside the Hall of Balif an honor guard of twenty warriors was drawn up, and farther down the hall twenty young elf girls chosen from the families of the guild masters stood ready to precede the honor guard. And beyond them, filling the other end of the corridor, were twenty elf boys dressed in long, trailing white robes and carrying sistrums. The size of the escort took Hermathya back for a moment. She looked out at the sea of expectant faces. It was rather overwhelming. All these people, and thousands more outside, awaited her. She called upon the core of strength that had carried her through troubles before, put on her most serene expression, and held out her hand. Kencathedrus rested her hand on his armored forearm, and the procession to the Tower of the Stars began.

Nirakina walked three steps behind them, and after her the honor guard fell in with the clank and rattle of armor and metal sandals. The boys led the procession in slow step, banging their sistrums against their hands. To this steady rhythm the elf girls followed, strewing flower petals in the path of the bride.

Outside, the sun was high and bright, and every spire in Silvanost boasted a streaming banner.

When Hermathya appeared on the steps of the Palace of Quinari, the assembled crowd let out a shout of greeting.

“What do I do?” Hermathya murmured. “Do I wave?”

“No, that would be vulgar. You must be above it all,” said Nirakina softly.

A phalanx of pipers, clad in brilliant green, formed in front of the sistrum-bearing boys and played a bright fanfare. The music settled into a march as the procession wound around the Gardens of Astarin, following the circular road. According to ritual, the bride was first taken to the temple of Quenesti Pah, where she underwent a rite of purification. At the same time, the groom was receiving similar rites in the temple of E’li.

Then the two came together before the speaker in the Tower of the Stars, where they exchanged golden rings shaped to resemble twining branches and where their joining was finally accomplished.

The sun shone down from a spring sky unsullied by a single cloud, and the marble buildings glowed in the midst of velvety green foliage. The crowd cheered mightily for the spectacle. Perhaps, Hermathya thought idly, in time they will cheer so for me....

“Careful, Lady,” warned Kencathedrus. The flower petals were being trodden to mush, and the road was getting a bit treacherous. Hermathya’s golden sandals were stained with the crushed pulp. She lifted the hem of her diaphanous white gown out of the debris.

The squat, conical tower of the Temple of E’li appeared ahead on her right. Hermathya could see Sithas’s guard of honor-at least a hundred warriors-drawn up on the. Steps. Just as her own attendants were bedecked in gold and white, so Sithas’s attendants wore gold and green. She tried to keep her eyes straight ahead as they passed the temple, but she was drawn irresistibly to look in the open doors. It was dark inside the house of worship, and though she could see torches blazing on the wall, she could see neither Sithas nor anyone else within.

As the bride’s entourage rounded the curve, the press of the crowd became greater and the cheering intensified. The shadow cast by the Tower of the Stars fell across the street. It was thought to be good luck to stand in the structure’s shadow, so hundreds were crammed into the narrow space.

On a sudden impulse, Hermathya abandoned her distant, serene demeanor and smiled. The cheering increased. She raised her free hand and waved, once to the people of Silvanost. A roar went up such as the ‘City had never heard, a roar that excited her.

In the Temple of E’li, Sithas heard the roar. He was kneeling before the high priest, about to be anointed with sacred oils. He raised his head slightly and turned one ear toward the sound. The warrior who knelt behind him whispered, “$ball I see what is the matter, Lord?”

“No” replied Sithas levelly. “I believe the people have just met the bride.”

*

The Temple of Quenesti Pah, goddess of health and fertility, was a light, airy vault with a roof of transparent tortoiseshell. There was no great central tower, as in most of the other temples. Instead, four thin spires rose from the comers of the roof, solid columns of rock that reached skyward. Though not as imposing as the House of E’li, or as somber as the Temple of Matheti, Mermathya thought the Temple of Quenesti Pah the prettiest building in Silvanost.

The pipers, sistrum players, and flower girls all turned aside and flanked the entrance to the temple. The honor guard halted at the foot of the steps.

Nirakina stepped up beside Hermathya. “If you have finished performing for the crowd, we will go in.” In her tone could be detected a sharpness, and Hermathya hid a smile. Without replying, Hermathya gave the crowd one last wave before she entered the temple.

Nirakina watched her ascend the steps. She was really trying to get along with the girl, but every passing moment added to her irritation. For Sithas’s sake, she wanted the marriage to be a success, but her overwhelming feeling was that Hermathya was a spoiled child.

Inside, the ritual was brief, consisting of little more than prayers and the washing of Hermathya’s hands in scented water. Nirakina hovered over her, her distaste for the younger woman’s behavior just barely concealed. But Hermathya had understood Nirakina’s annoyance, and she found that she enjoyed it. It added to her sense of excitement.

The ritual done, the bride rose to her feet and thanked Miritelisina, the high priestess. Then, without waiting for Nirakina, she walked swiftly from the temple. The crowd was waiting breathlessly for her reappearance, and Hermathya did not disappoint them. A thunder of approval built from the back of the crowd, where the poorest elves stood. She flashed them a smile, then moved with quick grace down to Kencathedrus. Nirakina hurried after her, looking harassed and undignified.

The procession reformed, and the pipers played “Children of the Stars,” the ancient tune that every elf knew from childhood. Even Hermathya was surprised, however, when the people began to sing along with the pipers.

She slowed her pace and gradually stopped. The procession strung out until the pipers in the fore realized that those behind had halted. The music swelled higher and louder until Harmathya felt that she was being lifted by it.

With little prelude, the bride sang. At her side, Kencathedrus looked at her in wonder. He glanced over his armored shoulder to Lady Nirakina, who stood silent and straight, arms held rigidly at her sides. Her voluminous sleeves covered her tightly clenched fists.

Some in the crowd ceased their own singing that they might hear the bride. But as the last verse of the song began, they all joined in; once more the sound threatened to raise the city from its foundations. When the last words of “Children of the Stars” faded in the throats of thousands, silence fell over Silvanost. The silence seemed more intense because of the tumult earlier. Everyone assembled in the street, every elf on rooftops and in tower windows had his or her eyes on Hermathya.

Casually the bride took her hand from Kencathedrus’s arm and walked through the procession toward the Tower of the Stars. The flower girls and sistrum-bearers parted in complete silence. Hermathya walked with calm grace through the ranks of the pipers. They stood aside, their silver flutes stilled. Up the steps of the Tower of the Stars she moved, appearing in the doorway alone.

Sithas stood in the center of the hall, waiting. With much less fanfare, he had come from the Temple of E’li with his retainers. Farther inside, Sithel sat on his throne. The golden mantle that lay on the speaker’s shoulders spread out on the floor before him, trailing down the two steps of the dais, across the platform and down the seven steps to where Sithas stood. In front of the throne dais was an ornate and intricately carved golden tray on a silver stand. On the tray rested the golden rings the couple would exchange.

Hermathya came forward. The silence continued as if the entire elven nation was holding its breath. Part of the sensation was awe, and part was amazement. The bride of the speaker’s heir had broken several traditions on her way to the tower. The royal family had always maintained an aloofness, an air of unbreachable dignity. Hermathya had flaunted herself before the crowd, yet the people of Silvanost seemed to love her for it.

Sithas wore ceremonial armor over his robe of gold. The skillfully worked breastplate and shoulder pieces were enameled in vibrant green. Though the cuirass bore the arms of Silvanos, Sithas had attached a small red rosebud to his sleeve, a small but potent symbol of his devotion to his patron deity.

When Hermathya drew near, he said teasingly, “Well, my dear, has the celebration ended?”

“No,” she said, smiling sweetly. “It has just begun.”

Hand in hand, they went before Sithel.

*

The feasting that began that evening continued for four days. It grew quite wearing on the newlyweds, and after the second day they retired to the fifth floor of the Quinari tower, which had been redecorated as their living quarters. At night, Hermathya and Sithas stood on their balcony overlooking the heart of the city and watched the revelries below.

“Do you suppose anyone remembers what the celebration is for?” asked Hermathya.

“They don’t tonight. They will tomorrow,” Sithas said forcefully.

Yet he found it difficult being alone with her. She was so much a stranger to him – and always, in the back of his mind, he wondered if she compared him to Kith-Kanan. Though they were nearly identical in looks, Sithel’s heir knew that he and his brother were worlds apart in temperament. Sithas grasped the balcony rail tightly. For the first time in his life he was at a loss as to what to do or say.

“Are you happy?” Hermathya asked after a long, mutual silence.

“I am content,” he said carefully.

“Will you ever be happy?” she asked coyly.

Sithas turned to his wife and said, “I will endeavor to try.”

“Do you miss Kith-Kanan?”

The calm golden eyes clouded for a moment. “Yes, I miss him. Do you, Lady?”

Hermathya touched the starjewel she wore pinned to the throat of her gown. Slowly she leaned against the prince and slipped an arm about his waist. “No, I don’t miss him,” she said a little too strongly.

Chapter 6

THE SAME DAY, IN THE FOREST

Shorn of his armor and city-made clothes, Kith-Kanan padded through the forest in a close-fitting deerskin tunic and leggings such as Mackeli wore. He was trying to circle Mackeli’s house without the boy hearing him.

“You’re by the gray elm,” Mackeli’s voice sang out. And so Kith-Kanan was. Try as he might, he still made too much noise. The boy might keep his eyes closed so he wouldn’t see the heat of Kith-Kanan’s body, but Mackeli’s keen ears were never fooled.

Kith-Kanan doubled back six feet and dropped down on his hands. There was no sound in the woods. Mackeli called, “You can’t steal up on anyone by sitting still.”

The prince stepped only on the tree roots that humped up above the level of the fallen leaves. In this way he went ten paces without making a sound. Mackeli said nothing, and the prince grinned to himself. The boy couldn’t hear him! At last.

He stepped far out from a root to a flat stone. The stone was tall enough to allow him to reach a low limb on a yew tree. As silently as possible, he pulled himself up into the yew tree, hugging the trunk. His green and brown tunic blended well with the lichen-spotted bark. A hood concealed his fair hair. Immobile, he waited. He’d surprise the boy this time!

Any second now, Mackeli would walk by and then he’d spring down on him. But something firm thumped against his hood. Kith-Kanan raised his eyes and saw Mackeli, clinging to the tree just three feet above him. He nearly fell off the branch, so great was his surprise.

“By the Dragonqueen!” he swore. “How did you get up there?”

“I climbed,” said Mackeli smugly.

“But how? I never saw —”

“Walking on the roots was good, Kith, but you spent so much time watching your feet I was able to slip in front of you.”

“But this tree! How did you know which one to climb?”

Mackeli shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I made it easy for you. I pushed the stone out far enough for you to step on and climbed up here to wait. You did the rest.”

Kith-Kanan swung down to the ground. “I feel like a fool. Why, your average goblin is probably better in the woods than I am.”

Mackeli let go of the tree and fell in a graceful arc. He caught the low branch with his fingertips to slow his descent. Knees bent, he landed beside Kith-Kanan.

“You are pretty clumsy,” he said without malice. “But you don’t smell as bad as a goblin.”

“My thanks.” said the prince sourly.

“It’s really just a matter of breathing.”

“Breathing? How?”

“You breathe like this.” Mackeli threw back his shoulders and puffed out his thin chest. He inhaled and exhaled like a blacksmith’s bellows. The sight was so absurd, Kith-Kanan had to smile. “Then you walk the way you breathe.” The boy stomped about exaggeratedly, lifting his feet high and crashing them into the scattered leaves and twigs.

Kith-Kanan’s smile flattened into a frown. “How do you breathe?” he asked.

Mackeli rooted about at the base of the tree until he found a cast-off feather. He lay on his back and placed it on his upper lip. So smoothly did the elf boy draw breath, the feather never wavered.

“Am I going to have to learn how to breathe?” Kith-Kanan demanded.

“It would be a good start,” said Mackeli. He hopped to his feet. “We go home now.”

Several days passed slowly for Kith-Kanan in the forest. Mackeli was a clever and engaging companion, but his diet of nuts, berries, and water did not agree with the elf prince’s tastes. His belly, which was hardly ample to start with, shrank under the simple fare. Kith-Kanan longed for meat and nectar. Only Ny could get meat, the boy insisted. Yet there was no sign of the mysterious “Ny.”

There was also no sign of the missing Arcuballis. Though Kith-Kanan prayed that somehow they could be reunited, he knew there was little hope for this. With no idea where the griffon had been taken and no way of finding out, the prince tried to accept that Arcuballis was gone forever. The griffon, a tangible link with his old life, was gone, but Kith-Kanan still had his memories.

These same memories returned to torment the prince in his dreams during those days. He heard once more his father announce Hermathya’s betrothal to Sithas. He relived the ordeal in the Tower of the Stars, and, most terrible of all, he listened to Hermathya’s calm acceptance of Sithas.

Kith-Kanan filled his days talking with and learning from Mackeli, determined to build a new life away from Silvanost. Perhaps that life would be here, he decided, in the peace and solitude of the ancient forest.

One time Kith-Kanan asked Mackeli where he’d been born, where he’d come from.

“I have always been from here,” Mackeli replied, waving absently at the trees.

“You were born here?”

“I have always been here,” he replied stubbornly.

At that, Kith-Kanan gave up. Questions about the past stymied the boy almost as much as queries about the future. If he stuck to the presents and whatever they were doing at the moment – he could almost have a conversation with Mackeli.

In return for Mackeli’s lessons in stealth and survival, Kith-Kanan regaled his young friend with tales of Silvanost, of the great wars against the dragons, and of the ways of city-bred elves.

Mackeli loved these stories, but more than anything, metal fascinated him. He would sit crosslegged on the ground and hold some object of Kith-Kanan’s – his helmet, a greave, a piece from his armor-and rub his small brown fingers against the cold surface again and again. He could not fathom how such hard material could be shaped so intricately. Kith-Kanan explained what he knew of smithy and foundry work. The idea that metal could be melted and poured absolutely astounded Mackeli.

“You put metal in the fire,” he said, “and it doesn’t burn? It gets soft and runny, like water?”

“Well, it’s thicker than water.”

“Then you take away the fire, and the metal gets hard again?”

Kith-Kanan nodded. “You made that up!” Mackeli exclaimed. “Things put in the fire get burned.”

“I swear by E’li, it is the truth.”

Mackeli was too slight to handle the sword, but he was able to draw the bow well enough to shoot. He had an uncanny eye, and Kith-Kanan wished he would use some of that stealth to bring down a deer for dinner. But it was not to be; Mackeli didn’t eat meat and he refused to shed blood for Kith-Kanan. Only Ny...

On a gray and rainy morning, Mackeli went out to gather nuts and roots. Kith-Kanan remained in the hollow tree, stoking the fire, polishing his sword and dagger. When the rain showed signs of letting up, he left his weapons below and climbed the ladder to the upper part of the oak tree. He stood on a branch thicker around than his waist and surveyed the rain-washed forest. Drops fell from the verdant leaves, and the air had a clean, fertile smell. Deeply the prince inhaled. He had found a small measure of peace here, and the meeting with the Forestmaster had foretold great adventure for his future.

Kith-Kanan went back down and immediately noticed that his sword and dagger were gone. His first thought was that Mackeli had come back and was playing a trick on him, but the prince saw no signs the boy had returned. He turned around and was going back up the tree when something heavy struck him from behind, in the middle of his back.

He crashed against the trunk, spun, and saw nothing. “Mackeli!” he cried, “This isn’t funny!” Neither was the blow on the back of his head that followed. A weight bore Kith-Kanan to the ground. He rolled and felt arms and legs around him. Something black and shiny flashed by his nose. He knew the move of a stabbing attack, and he put out both hands to seize the attacker’s wrist.

His assailant’s face was little more than a whorl of painted lines and a pair of shadowed eyes. The flint knife wavered, and as Kith-Kanan backhanded the knife wielder, the painted face let out a gasp of pain. Kith-Kanan sat up, wrenched the knife out of its owner’s grasp, and pinned his attacker to the ground with one knee.

“The kill is yours,” said the attacker. His struggles faded, and he lay tense but passive under Kith-Kanan’s weight.

Kith-Kanan threw the knife away and stood up. “Who are you?”

“The one who is here. Who are you?” the painted elf said sharply.

“I am Kith, formerly of Silvanost. Why did you attack me?”

“You are in my house.”

Understanding quickly dawned. “Are you Ny?”

“The name of my birth was Anaya.” There was cool assurance in the voice.

He frowned. “That sounds like a female name.”

Anaya got up and kept a discreet distance from Kith-Kanan. He realized she was a female elf of the Kagonesti race. Her black hair was cut close to her head, except in back, where she wore a long braid. Anaya was shorter than Kith-Kanan by a head, and much slimmer. Her green-dyed deerskin tunic ended at her hips, leaving her legs bare. Like her face, her legs were covered with painted lines and decorations.

Her dark, hazel eyes darted left and right. “Where is Mackeli?”

“Out gathering nuts, I think,” he said, watching her keenly.

“Why did you come here?”

“The Forestmaster sent me,” the prince stated flatly.

In less time than it takes to tell, Anaya bolted from the clearing. She ran to an oak tree and, to Kith-Kanan’s astonishment, ran right up the broad trunk. She caught an overhead limb and swung into the midst of the leaves. Gaping, he made a few flatfooted steps forward, but the wild elf was completely lost from view.

“Anaya! Come back! I am a friend! The Forestmaster —”

“I will ask the Master if it is so.” Her clear, high voice came from somewhere above his line of sight. “If you speak the truth, I will return. If you say the Master’s name in vain, I will call down the Black Crawlers on you.”

“What?” Kith-Kanan spun around, looking up, trying to locate her. He could see nothing. “Who are the Black Crawlers?” But there was no answer, only the sighing of the wind through the leaves.

*

Night fell, and neither Mackeli nor Anaya had returned. Kith-Kanan began to fear that something might have happened to the boy. There were interlopers in the forest, the Forestmaster had said. Mackeli was clever, but he was innocent of the ways of ambush and murder. If the boy was in their hands... and Anaya. There was a strange creature! If he hadn’t actually fought with her, felt the solidness of her flesh, he would have called her a wraith, a forest spirit. But the bruise on his jaw was undeniably real.

Growing tired of the closeness of the hollow tree, the prince cleared a spot in the leaves to build a fire outside. He scraped down to bare soil and laid some stones for a hearth. Soon he had a fine fire blazing. The smoke wafted into the darkness, and sparks floated up, winking off like dying stars.

Though it was summer, Kith-Kanan felt a chill. He held his hands out to the fire, warming them. Crickets whirred in the dark beyond the firelight. Cicadas stirred in the trees, and bats swooped into the clearing to catch them. Suddenly the prince felt as if he was in the center of a seething, crawling pot. His eyes flicked back and forth, following odd rustlings and scrapings in the dry leaves. Things fluttered overhead, slithered behind his back. He grasped the unburned end of a stick of wood and pulled it out of the fire. Dark things seemed to leap back into the shadows when Kith-Kanan brought the burning torch near.

He stood with his back to the fire, breathing hard. With the blazing brand before him like a noble blade, the elf kept the darkness at bay. Gradually the incessant activity lessened. By the time Solinari rose above the trees, all was still.

After throwing the stump of the burned limb back on the dying fire, Kith-Kanan sat down again and faced the red coals. Like a thousand lonely travelers before him, the prince whistled a tune to keep the loneliness away. It was a tune from his childhood: “Children of the Stars.”

The chorus died when his lips went dry. He saw something that froze him completely. Between the black columns of two tree trunks were a pair of red staring eyes.

He tried to think what it could be. The possibilities were not good: wolf, bear, a tawny panther. The two eyes blinked and disappeared. Kith-Kanan jumped to his feet and snatched up a stone from the outside edge of his campfire. He hurled it at the spot where he’d last seen the eyes. The rock crashed into the underbrush. There was no other sound, Even the crickets had ceased their singing.

Then Kith-Kanan sensed he was being watched and turned to the right. The red eyes were back, creeping forward a foot or so off the ground, right toward him.

Darkness is the enemy, he suddenly realized. Whatever I can see, I can fight. Scooping up a double handful of dead leaves, he threw them on the embers of the fire. Flames blazed up. He immediately saw a long, lean body close to the ground. The advance of the red eyes stopped, and suddenly they rose from the ground.

It was Anaya.

“I have spoken with the Forestmaster,” she said a little sulkily, her eyes glowing red in the light from the flames. “You said the truth.” Anaya walked sideways a few steps, never taking her eyes off Kith-Kanan. Despite this good news, he felt that she was about to spring on him. She dropped down on her haunches and looked into the fire. The leaves were consumed, and their remains sank onto the heap of dully glowing ashes.

“It is wise you laid a fire,” she said. “I called the Black Crawlers to watch over you while I spoke with the Forestmaster.”

He straightened his shoulders with studied nonchalance. “Who are the Black Crawlers?”

“I will show you.” Anaya picked up a dead dry branch and held it to the coals. It smoked heavily for an instant, then burst into flame. She carried the burning branch to the line of trees defining the clearing.

Kith-Kanan lost his hard-won composure when Anaya showed him what was waiting beyond the light.

Every tree trunk, every branch, every square inch of ground was covered with black, creeping things. Crickets, millipedes, leaf hoppers, spiders of every sort and size, earwigs, pill bugs, beetles up to the size of his fist, cockroaches, caterpillars, moths, flies of the largest sort, grasshoppers, cicadas with soft, pulpy bodies and gauzy wings... stretching as far as he could see, coating every surface. The horde was motionless, waiting.

Anaya returned to the fire. Kith-Kanan was white-faced with revulsion. “What sort of witch are you?” he gasped. “You command all these vermin?”

“I am no witch. This forest is my home, and I guard it closely. The Black Crawlers share the woodland with me. I gave them warning when I left you, and they gathered to keep you under watchful eyes.”

“Now that you know who I am, you can send them away,” he said.

“They have already departed. Could you not hear them go?” she scoffed.

“No, I couldn’t.” Kith-Kanan glanced around at the dark forest, blotting sweat from his face with his sleeve. He focussed his attention on the fascinating elf woman and blotted out the memory of the Crawlers. With her painted decorations, grime, and dyed deerskin, Kith-Kanan wasn’t sure how old Anaya might be, or even what she really looked like. She perched on her haunches, balancing on her toes. Kith-Kanan fed some twigs to the fire, and the scene slowly lightened.

“The Forestmaster says you are here to drive away the intruders,” Anaya said. “I have heard them, smelled them, seen the destruction they have caused. Though I have never doubted the word of the great unicorn, I do not see how you can drive anyone away. You are no ranger; you smell of a place where people are many and trees few.”

Kith-Kanan was tired of the Kagonesti’s casual rudeness. He excused it in Mackeli, who was only a boy, but it was too much coming from this wild woman.

“I am a prince of House Royal,” he said proudly. “I am trained in the arts of the warrior. I don’t know who or how many of these intruders there are, but I will do my best to find a way to get rid of them. You need not like me, Anaya, but you had better not insult me too often.” He leaned back on his elbows. “After all, who wrestled whom to the ground?”

She poked the dancing bowl of flames. “I let you take my knife away,” she said defensively. Kith-Kanan sat up. “You what?”

“You seemed such a clumsy outlander, I did not think you were dangerous. I let you get the advantage to see what you would do. You could not have cut my throat with that flint blade. It was dull as a cow’s tooth.”

Despite his annoyance, Kith-Kanan found himself smiling. “You wanted to see if I was merciful, is that it?”

“That was my purpose,” she said.

“So I guess I really am a slow, dumb outlander,” he said.

“There is power in your limbs,” she admitted, “but you fight like a falling stone.”

“And I don’t breathe properly either.” Kith-Kanan was beginning to wonder how he had ever lived to the age of ninety, being so inept.

Mentioning breathing reminded the prince of Mackeli, and he told Anaya the boy still hadn’t returned.

“Keli has stayed away longer than this before,” she said, waving a hand dismissively.

Though still concerned, Kith-Kanan realized that Anaya knew Mackeli’s ways far better than he did. The prince’s stomach chose that moment to growl, and he rubbed it, his face coloring with embarrassment.

“You know, I am very hungry,” he informed her.

Without a word, Anaya went inside the hollow oak. She returned a moment later with a section of smoked venison ribs wrapped in curled pieces of bark. Kith-Kanan shook his head; he wondered where those had been hiding all these weeks.

Anaya dropped down by the fire, in her characteristic crouch, and slipped a slender flint blade out of her belt pouch. With deft, easy strokes, she cut the ribs apart and began eating.

“May I have some?” the prince inquired desperately. She promptly flung two ribs at him through the fire. Kith-Kanan knew nicety of manner was lost on the Kagonesti, and the sight of the meat made his mouth water. He picked up a rib from his lap and nibbled it. The meat was hard and tangy, but very good. While he nibbled, Anaya gnawed. She cleaned rib bones faster than anyone he’d ever seen.

“Thank you,” he said earnestly.

“You should not thank me. Now that you have eaten my meat, it is for you to do as I say,” she replied firmly.

“What are you talking about?” he said, frowning. “A prince of the Silvanesti serves no one but the speaker and the gods.”

Anaya dropped the clean bones in the fire. “You are not in the Place of Spires any longer. This is the wildwood, and the first law here is, you eat what you take with your own hands. That makes you free. If you eat what others give you, you are not a free person; you are a mewling child who must be fed.”

Kith-Kanan got stiffly to his feet. “I have sworn to help the Forestmaster, but by the blood of E’li, I’ll not be anyone’s servant! Especially not some dirty, painted savage!”

“Being a prince does not matter. The law will be done. Feed yourself, or obey me. Those are your choices,” she said flatly.

Anaya walked to the tree. Kith-Kanan grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. “What have you done with my sword and dagger?” he demanded.

“Metal stinks.” Anaya jerked her arm free. “It is not permitted for me to touch it. I wrapped a scrap of hide around your metal and carried it from my house. Do not bring it in again.”

He opened his mouth to shout at her, to rail against her unjust treatment of him. But before he could, Anaya went inside the tree. Her voice floated out. “I sleep now. Put out the fire.”

When the fire was cold and dead, the prince stood in the door of the tree. “Where do I sleep?” he asked sarcastically.

“Where you can fit,” was Anaya’s laconic reply. She was curled up by the wall, so Kith-Kanan lay down as far from her as he could, yet still be in the warmth of the tree. Thoughts raced through his head. How to find Arcuballis and get out of the forest. How to get away from Anaya. Where Mackeli was. Who the interlopers were —

“Don’t think so loud,” Anaya said irritatedly. “Go to sleep.” With a sigh, Kith-Kanan finally closed his eyes.

Chapter 7

HIGH SUMMER, YEAR OF THE HAWK

Elves from all corners of Silvanesti had come to Silvanost for Trial Days, that period every year when the Speaker of the Stars sat in judgment of disputes, heard the counsel of his nobles and clerics, and generally tried to resolve whatever problems faced his people.

A platform had been built on the steps of the Temple of E’li. Upon it, Sithel sat on a high, padded throne, under a shimmering white canopy. He could survey the entire square. Sithas stood behind him, watching and listening. Warriors of the royal guard kept the lines orderly as people made their way slowly up the line to their ruler. Trial Days were sometimes amusing, often irritating, and always, always lengthy.

Sithel was hearing a case where two fishers had disputed a large carp, which hit both of their hooks at the same time. Both elves claimed the fish, which had been caught weeks before and allowed to rot while they debated its ownership.

Sithel announced his judgment. “I declare the fish to be worth two silver pieces. As you own it jointly, you will each pay the other one silver piece for permitting it to spoil.”

The gaping fishers would have complained but Sithel forestalled them. “It is so ordered. Let it be done!” The trial scribe struck a bell, signaling the end of the case. The fishers bowed and withdrew.

Sithel stood up. The royal guards snapped to attention. “I will take a short rest,” he announced. “In my absence, my son, Sithas, will render judgment.”

The prince looked to his father in surprise. In a low voice he said, “Are you sure, Father?”

“Why not? It will give you a taste of the role.”

The speaker went to the rear of the platform. He watched Sithas slowly seat himself in the chair of judgment. “Next case,” declared his son ringingly.

Sithel ducked through a flap in the cloth wall. There he saw his wife, waiting at a small table laden with food and drink. Snowy white linen walled off this end of the platform on three sides. The rear was open to the temple. The formidable facade loomed over them, fluted columns and walls banded with deep blue, bright rose, and grassy green stone. The heat of midday was upon the city, but a breeze wafted through the canopied enclosure.

Nirakina stood and dismissed a serving boy who had been posted at the table. She poured her husband a tall goblet of nectar. Sithel picked a few grapes from a golden bowl and accepted the goblet.

“How is he doing?” Nirakina asked, gesturing to the front of the platform.

“Well enough. He must get used to rendering decisions.” Sithel sipped the amber liquid. “Weren’t you and Hermathya attending the debut of Elidan’s epic song today?”

“Hermathya pleaded illness and the performance was postponed until tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with her?” The speaker settled back in his chair.

Nirakina’s face clouded. “She would rather visit the Market than remain in the palace. She is proud and willful, Sithel.”

“She knows how to get attention, that’s certain,” her husband said, chuckling. “I hear the crowds follow her in the streets.”

Nirakina nodded. “She throws coins and gems to them – just often enough for them to cheer her madly.” She leaned forward and put her hand over his where it rested on the goblet. “Sithel, did we make the right choice? So much unhappiness has come about because of this girl. Do you think all will be well?”

Sithel released his grip on the cup and took his wife’s hand. “I don’t think any harm will come of Hermathya’s follies, Kina. She’s drunk with acclaim right now, but she will tire of it when she realizes how empty and fleeting the adulation of the mob is. She and Sithas should have children. That would slow her down, give her something else on which to concentrate.”

Nirakina tried to smile, though she couldn’t help but notice how the speaker had avoided mention of Kith-Kanan at all. Her husband had a strong will. His anger and disappointment were not easily overcome.

The sound of raised voices swelled over the square. Sithel ate a last handful of grapes. “Let’s see what disturbs the people,” he said.

He stepped around the curtain and walked to the front edge of the platform. The crowd, in its orderly lines, had parted down the center of the square. There, between two lines of soldiers, were twenty to thirty newcomers. They were injured. Some were being carried on litters, others wore blood-stained bandages. The injured elves, male and female, approached the foot of the speaker’s platform slowly and painfully. Guards moved forward to keep them away, but Sithel ordered that they be allowed to come.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Great speaker,” said a tall elf at the head of the group. His face was sun-browned and his body muscled from outdoor work. His corn-colored hair was ragged and sooty, and a dirty bandage covered most of his right arm. “Great speaker, we are all that is left of the village of Trokali. We have come almost two hundred miles to tell you of our plight.”

“What happened?”

“We were a peaceful village, great speaker. We tended our trees and fields and traded with all who came to the market in the town square. But on the night of the last quarter of Lunitari, a band of brigands appeared in Trokali. They set fire to the houses, broke the limbs off our fruit trees, carried off our women and children —” Here the elf’s voice broke. He paused a moment to master his emotions, then continued. “We are not fighters, great speaker, but the fathers and mothers of Trokali tried to defend what was ours. We had sticks and hoes against swords and arrows. These here,” he waved a hand in the direction of the battered group behind him, “are all that live out of a village of two hundred.”

Sithas left the platform and went down the temple steps until he was on the level with the tall elf from Trokali.

“What is your name?” Sithas demanded.

“Tamanier Ambrodel.”

“Who were these brigands, Tamanier?”

The elf shook his head sadly. “I do not know, sire.”

“They were humans!” cried an elf woman with a badly burned face. She pushed her way through the crowd. “I saw them!” she hissed. “They were humans. I saw the hair on their faces!”

“They weren’t all human,” Tamanier said sharply. He raised his wounded arm. “The one who cut me was Kagonesti!”

“Kagonesti and humans in the same band?” Sithas said in consternation. Murmurs surged through the crowd. He turned to look up at his father.

Sithel held up his hands. The scribe had to strike his bell four times before the crowd was quiet. “This matter requires further attention,” he proclaimed. “My son will remain here for the trials, while I will conduct the people of Trokali to the Palace of Quinari, where each shall give testimony.”

Sithas bowed deeply to his father as an escort of twelve warriors formed in the square to convey the survivors of Trokali to the palace. The lame and sick made it a slow and difficult procession, but Tamanier Ambrodel led his people with great dignity.

Sithel descended the steps of the Temple of E’li, with Nirakina by his side. Courtiers scrambled to keep pace with the speaker’s quick stride. The murmuring in the square grew as the people of Trokali trailed after.

Nirakina glanced back over her shoulder at the crowd. “Do you think there will be trouble?” she asked.

“There is already trouble. Now we must see what can be done to remedy it,” Sithel answered tersely.

In short order they entered the plaza before the palace. Guards at the doors, responding to the speaker’s brief commands, summoned help.

Servants flooded out of the palace to aid the injured elves. Nirakina directed them and saw to the distribution of food and water.

Out of deference to Tamanier’s weakened condition, Sithel took him no farther than the south portico. He bade Tamanier sit, overlooking the protocol that required commoners to stand in the presence of the speaker. The tall elf eased himself into a finely carved stone chair. He exhaled loudly with relief.

“Tell me about the brigands,” Sithel commanded.

“There were thirty or forty of them, Highness,” Tamanier said, swallowing hard. “They came on horseback. Hardlooking, they were. The humans wore mail and carried long swords.”

“And the Kagonesti?”

“They were poor-looking, ragged and dirty. They carried off our women and children... “

Tamanier covered his face with his hands.

“I know it is difficult,” Sithel said calmly. “But I must know. Go on.”

“Yes, Highness.” Tamanier dropped his hands, but they shook until he clenched them in his lap. A quaver had crept into his voice. “The humans set fire to the houses and chased off all our livestock. It was also the humans who threw ropes over our trees and tore off their branches. Our orchards are ruined, completely ruined.”

“Are you sure about that? The humans despoiled the trees?”

“I am certain, great speaker.”

Sithel walked down the cool, airy portico, hands clasped behind his back. Passing Tamanier, he noticed the thin gold band the elf wore around his neck.

“Is that real gold?” he asked abruptly.

Tamanier fingered the band. “It is, Highness. It was a gift from my wife’s family.”

“And the brigands didn’t take it from you?”

Realization slowly came to Tamanier. “Why, no. They never touched it. Come to think of it, great speaker, no one was robbed. The bandits burned houses and broke down our trees, but they didn’t plunder us at all!” He scratched his dirty cheek. “Why would they do that, Highness?”

Sithel tapped two fingers against his chin thoughtfully. “The only thing I can think of is they didn’t care about your gold. They were after something more important.” Tamanier watched him expectantly, but the speaker didn’t elaborate. He rang for a servant. When one appeared he told him to take care of Tamanier. “We will talk again,” he assured the tall elf. “In the meantime, do not speak of this with anyone, not even your wife.”

Tamanier stood, leaning crookedly, favoring his wounded side. “My wife was killed,” he said stiffly.

Sithel watched him go. An honorable fellow, he decided. He would do well to keep an eye on Tamanier Ambrodel. The Speaker of the Stars could always use such an honorable man at court.

He entered the palace through a side door. A steady stream of servants trooped by, carrying buckets and soiled towels. Healers, who were clerics of the goddess Quenesti Pah, had arrived to tend the injured. Sithel looked over the bustle of activity. Trokali was two hundred miles from Silvanost. No human raiders had ever penetrated so far. And in the company of Kagonesti elves...

The Speaker of the Stars shook his head worriedly.

*

After finishing the day’s trials, Sithas dismissed the court. Though he had listened to each case fairly, he could not keep his thoughts away from the attack on the village of Trokali. When he returned to his rooms in the palace, everyone, from his mother to the humblest servant, was talking about the raid and its portent.

Hermathya waited for him in their room. No sooner had he entered than she jumped to her feet and exclaimed, “Did you hear about the raid?”

“I did,” Sithas said with deliberate nonchalance, shrugging off his dusty outer robe. He poured cool water into a basin and washed his hands and face.

“What’s to be done?” she prodded.

“Done? I hardly think that’s our concern. The speaker will deal with the problem.”

“Why do you not do something yourself?” Hermathya demanded, crossing the room. Her scarlet gown showed off the milky paleness of her skin. Her eyes flashed as she spoke. “The entire nation would unite behind the one who would put down the insolent humans.”

“The ‘one’? Not the speaker?” asked Sithas blandly.

“The speaker is old,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “Old people are beset with fears.”

Dropping the towel he’d used to dry his hands, Sithas caught Hermathya’s wrist and pulled her close. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t shrink back. Sithas’s eyes bored into hers.

“What you say smacks of disloyalty,” he rumbled icily.

“You want what is best for the nation, don’t you?” she replied, leaning into him. “If these attacks continue, all the settlers to the west will flee back to the city, as did the elves of Trokali. The humans of Ergoth will settle our land with their own people. Is that good for Silvanesti?”

Sithas’s face hardened at the thought of humans encroaching on their ancient land. “No,” he said firmly.

Hermathya put her free hand on his arm. “How then is it disloyal to want to end these outrages?”

“I am not the Speaker of the Stars!”

Her eyes were the deep blue of the sky at dusk as Hermathya moved to kiss her husband. “Not yet,” she whispered, and her breath was sweet and warm on his face. “Not yet”

Chapter 8

LATE SPRING, IN THE FOREST

Mackeli had been gone three days when Anaya showed Kith-Kanan where she had secreted his sword and dagger. There could be no question now that something had happened to him and that they had to go to his rescue.

“There is your metal,” she said. “Take it up. You may have need of it.”

He brushed the dead leaves off the slim, straight blade of his sword and wiped it with an oily cloth. It slid home in its scabbard with only a faint hiss. Anaya kept back when he held the weapons. She regarded the iron blades with loathing, as if they were the stinking carcasses of long dead animals.

“Mackeli’s been gone so long, I hope we can pick up his trail,” Kith-Kanan said. His eyes searched the huge trees.

“As long as Mackeli lives, I will always be able to find him.” declared Anaya. “There is a bond between us. He is my brother.”

With this pronouncement she turned and went back to the hollow tree. Kith-Kanan followed her. What did she mean – brother? Were the two siblings? He’d wondered at their relationship, but certainly hadn’t noticed any family resemblance. Anaya was even less talkative on the subject than Mackeli had been.

He went to the door of the tree and looked in. Squatting before a piece of shiny mica, Anaya was painting her face. She had wiped her cheeks clean – relatively clean, anyway – with a wad of damp green leaves and now was applying paint made from berries and nut shells. Her brush was a new twig, the end of which she’d chewed to make it soft and pliable. Anaya went from one gourd full of pigment to another, painting zigzag lines on her face in red, brown, and yellow.

“What are you doing? Time is wasting,” Kith-Kanan said impatiently.

Anaya drew three converging lines on her chin, like an arrowhead in red. Her dark hazel eyes were hard as she said, “Go outside and wait for me.”

Kith-Kanan felt anger rising at her casual tone of command. She ordered him about like a servant, but there was nothing for him to do but stew. When Anaya finally emerged, they plunged into the deep shade of the woods. Kith-Kanan found his anger at her dissolving as he watched her move gracefully through the wood. She never disturbed a leaf or twig, moving, as Mackeli had said, like smoke.

They finally paused to rest, and Kith-Kanan sat on a log to catch his breath. He looked at Anaya as she stood poised, one foot atop the fallen log. She wasn’t even breathing heavily. She was a muscular, brown-skinned, painted Kagonesti – quite savage by Silvanesti standards – but she was also practical and wise in the ways of the forest. Their worlds were so different as to be hostile to each other, but he felt at that moment a sense of security. He was not so alone as he had believed.

“Why do you look at me that way?” Anaya asked, frowning.

“I was just thinking how much better it would be for us to be friends, instead of enemies,” said Kith-Kanan sincerely.

It was her turn to give him a strange look. He laughed and asked, “Now why are you looking at me like that?”

“I know the word, but I’ve never had a friend before,” Anaya said.

*

Kith-Kanan would not have believed it, but the place Anaya led him through was even thicker with trees than any part of the forest he’d seen so far. They were not the giants of the old forest where she lived, but of a size he was more accustomed to seeing. They grew so close together, however, that it soon became impossible for him to walk at all.

Anaya grasped an oak tree trunk with her bare hands and feet and started up it like a squirrel. Kith-Kanan gaped at the ease with which she scaled the tree. The leaves closed around her.

“Are you coming?” she called down, “I can’t climb like that!” he protested.

“Wait then.” He saw a flash of her red leg paint as she sprang from an oak branch to a nearby elm. The gap between branches was more than six feet, yet Anaya launched herself without a moment’s hesitation. A few seconds later she was back, flitting from tree to tree with the ease of a bird. A twined strand of creeper, as thick as the prince’s two thumbs, fell from the oak leaves and landed at his feet. This was more to his liking. Kith-Kanan spat on his palms and hauled himself up, hand over hand. He braced his feet against the tree trunk and soon found himself perched on an oak limb thirty feet from the forest floor.

“Whew!” he said, grinning. “A good climb!” Anaya was patently not impressed. After all, she had made the same climb with no vine at all. Kith-Kanan hauled up the creeper, coiling it carefully around his waist.

“It will be faster to stay in the treetops from now on,” Anaya advised.

“How can you tell this is the way Mackeli went?”

She gathered herself to leap. “I smell him. This way.”

Anaya sprang across to the elm. Kith-Kanan went more slowly, slipping a good deal on the round surface of the tree limb. Anaya waited for him to catch up, which he did by grasping an overhead branch and swinging over the gap. A dizzy glimpse of the ground flashed beneath his feet, and then Kith-Kanan’s leg hooked around the elm. He let go of the oak branch, swung upside-down by one leg, and gradually worked his way onto the elm.

“This is going to take a long time,” he admitted, panting for breath.

They continued on high in the treetops for most of the day. Though his hands were by no means soft, accustomed as they were to swordplay and his griffon’s reins, Kith-Kanan’s palms became scraped and sore from grasping and swinging on the rough-barked branches. His feet slipped so often that he finally removed his thick-strapped sandals and went barefoot like Anaya. His feet were soon as tender as his hands, but he didn’t slip again.

Even at the slow pace Kith-Kanan set, they covered many miles on their lofty road. Well past noon, Anaya called for a rest. They wedged themselves high in a carpeen tree. She showed him how to find the elusive fruit of the carpeen, yellow and pearlike, hidden by a tightly growing roll of leaves. The soft white meat of the carpeen not only sated their hunger, it was thirst-quenching, too.

“Do you think Mackeli is all right?” Kith-Kanan asked, the worry clear in his voice.

Anaya finished her fruit and dropped the core to the ground. “He is alive.” she stated flatly.

Kith-Kanan dropped his own fruit core and asked, “How can you be certain?”

Shifting around the prince with careless ease, Anaya slid from her perch and came down astride the limb where he sat. She took his scraped hand and held his fingertips to her throat.

“Do you feel the beat of my heart?” she asked him.

“Yes.” It was strong and slow.

She pushed his hand away. “And now?”

“Of course not. I’m no longer touching you,” he replied.

“Yet you see me and hear me, without touching me.”

“That’s different.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is it? If I tell you I can feel Mackeli’s heart beating from far off, do you believe me?”

“I do,” said Kith-Kanan. “I’ve seen that you have many wonderful talents.”

“No!” Anaya swept a hand through the empty air. “I am nothing but what the forest has made me.

As I am, so you could be!”

She took his hand again, holding his fingertips against the softly pulsing vein in her neck. Anaya looked directly in his eyes. “Show me the rhythm of my heart,” she said.

Kith-Kanan tapped a finger of his other hand against his leg. “Yes,” she coaxed. “You have it. Continue.”

Her gaze held his. It was true – between them he felt a connection. Not a physical bond, like the grasp of a hand, but a more subtle connection – like the bond he knew stretched between himself and Sithas. Even when they were not touching and were many miles apart he could sense the life force of Sithas. And now, between Anaya’s eyes and his, Kith-Kanan felt the steady surge of her pulse, beating, beating...

“Look at your hands,” urged Anaya.

His left was still tapping out the rhythm on his leg. His right lay palm up on the tree limb. He wasn’t touching her throat any longer.

“Do you still feel the pulse?” she asked.

He nodded. Even as he felt the surging of his own heart, he could feel hers, too. It was slower, steadier. Kith-Kanan looked with shock at his idle hand. “That’s impossible!” he exclaimed. No sooner had he said this than the sensation of her heartbeat left his fingertips.

Anaya shook her head. “You don’t want to learn,” she said in disgust. She stood up and stepped from the carpeen tree to the neighboring oak. “It’s time to move on. It will be dark before long, and you aren’t skilled enough to treewalk by night.”

This was certainly true, so Kith-Kanan did not protest. He watched the wiry Anaya wend her way through the web of branches, but the meaning of her lesson was still sinking in. What did it mean that he had been able to keep Anaya’s pulse? He still felt the pain of his separation from Hermathya, a hard, cold lump in his chest, but when he closed his eyes and thought of Hermathya for a moment – a tall, flame-haired elf woman with eyes of deepest blue – he only frowned in concentration, for there was nothing, no bond, however slight, that connected him with his lost love. He could not know if she was alive or dead. Sadness touched Kith-Kanan’s heart, but there was no time for self-pity now. He opened his eyes and moved quickly to where Anaya had stopped up ahead.

She was staring at a large crow perched on a limb near her head. When the crow spied Kith-Kanan, it abruptly flew away. Anaya’s shoulders drooped.

“The corvae have not seen Mackeli since four days past,” she explained. “But they have seen something else – humans.”

“Humans? In the wildwood?”

Anaya nodded. She lowered herself to a spindly limb and furrowed her brow in thought. “I did not smell them sooner because the metal you carry stinks in my nose too much. The corvae say there’s a small band of humans farther to the west. They’re cutting down the trees, and they have some sort of flying beast, of a kind the corvae have never seen.”

“Arcuballis! That’s my griffon! The humans must have captured it,” he said. In fact, he couldn’t imagine how; as far as he could determine they were miles from the spot where he’d first landed, and it would have been very difficult for strangers, especially humans, to handle the spirited Arcuballis.

“How many humans are there?” Kith-Kanan inquired.

Anaya gave him a disdainful look. “Corvae can’t count,” she stated contemptuously.

They started off again as twilight was falling. For a brief time it actually brightened in the trees, as the sinking sun lanced in from the side. Anaya found a particularly tall maple and climbed up. The majestic tree rose even above its neighbors, and its thick limbs grew in an easy step pattern around the massive trunk. Kith-Kanan had no trouble keeping up with the Kagonesti in the vertical climb.

At the top of the tree Anaya stopped, one arm hooked around the gnarled peak of the maple. Kith-Kanan worked his way around beside her. The maple’s pinnacle swayed under his additional weight, but the view was so breathtaking he didn’t mind the motion.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but the green tops of trees. The horizon to the west was darkening from pink to flame red. Kith-Kanan was enchanted. Though he had often seen great vistas from the back of Arcuballis, his appreciation for such sights had been increased by the weeks he’d spent in this forest, where a glimpse of sky was a rare treat.

Anaya was not enraptured. She narrowed her sharp eyes and said, “There they are.”

“Who?”

“The intruders. Do you not see the smoke?”

Kith-Kanan stared in the direction she pointed. To the north, a faint smudge of gray marred the sky’s royal blue. Even as he stared at it, Kith-Kanan wasn’t sure the smoke was really there. He blinked several times.

“They are burning the trees,” Anaya said grimly. “Savages!”

The prince refrained from saying that to most of the civilized people of Krynn, it was she who was the savage. Instead he asked, “Which way to Mackeli?”

“Toward the smoke,” she said. “The humans have taken him after all. I will see them bleed!”

Though Kith-Kanan was surprised at the depth of her feeling, he had no doubt she meant what she said.

They stayed in the treetops until the prince had begun to miss his handholds and then nearly fell forty feet to the ground. It was too dark to continue aloft, so Anaya and Kith-Kanan descended to the forest floor once more. They walked perhaps a mile in silence, Anaya gliding through the black tree trunks like a runaway shadow. Kith-Kanan felt the tension rising. He had never fought humans – he’d only met a few of them in Silvanost, and all of them were aristocrats. For that matter, he’d never fought anyone for real, in a fight where death was the likely outcome. He wondered if he could do it, actually thrust his sword through someone’s body, or use the edge to cut them.... He reminded himself that these humans were holding Mackeli prisoner, and probably his royal griffon, too.

Anaya froze, silhouetted between two large trees. Her hand was out stiffly behind her, a signal for Kith-Kanan to halt. He did and heard what had stopped her. The tinny sound of a flute drifted through the forest, borne along by the smells of wood smoke and roasting meat.

When he looked toward Anaya she’d vanished. He waited. What was he supposed to do? Kith-Kanan shook himself mentally. You, a prince of House Royal, wanting directions from a Kagonesti savage! You are a warrior – do your duty!

He charged through the underbrush. At the first gleam of a campfire, Kith-Kanan drew his sword. Another twenty steps, and he burst into a clearing hewn from the primeval woodland. A large campfire, almost a bonfire, blazed in the center of the clearing. A dozen ruddy faces – thickly fleshed human faces, with their low foreheads, broad cheeks, and wide jaws – turned toward the elf prince. Some had hair growing on their faces. All stared at him in utter astonishment.

One of the humans, with pale brown hair on his face, stood up. “Terrible spirit, do not harm us!” he intoned. “Peace be with you!”

Kith-Kanan relaxed. These weren’t desperate brigands. They were ordinary men and, by the looks of their equipment, woodcutters. He dropped his sword point and stepped into the firelight.

“It’s one of them!” declared another human. “The Elder Folk!”

“Who are you?” demanded Kith-Kanan.

“Essric’s company of woodmen. I am Essric,” said the brown-haired human.

Kith-Kanan surveyed the clearing. Over thirty large trees had been felled in this one place, and he could see a path had been cut through the forest. The very biggest trees were trimmed of their branches and were being split into halves and quarters with wedges and mallets. Slightly smaller trees were being dragged away. Kith-Kanan saw a rough pen full of broad-backed oxen.

“This is Silvanesti land,” he said. “By whose grant do you cut down trees that belong to the Speaker of the Stars?”

Essric looked to his men, who had nothing to tell him. He scratched his brown beard ruefully. “My lord, we were brought hither and landed on the south coast of this country by ships commanded by Lord Ragnarius of Ergoth. It is Lord Ragnarius’s pleasure that we fell as many trees as his ships can carry home. We didn’t know anyone owned these trees!”

Just then, an eerie howl rippled across the fire-lit clearing. The humans all stood up, reaching for axes and staves. Kith-Kanan smiled to himself. Anaya was putting a scare into the men.

A clean-shaven man to Essric’s left, who held a broadaxe in his meaty hands, suddenly let out a cry and staggered backward, almost falling in the fire. Instead, he dropped into the arms of his comrades.

“Forest spirits are attacking!” Kith-Kanan shouted. His declaration was punctuated by a hair-raising screech from the black trees. He had to struggle to keep from laughing as the twelve humans were driven from their fire by a barrage of sooty stones. One connected with the back of one man’s head, stretching him out flat. Panic-stricken, the others didn’t stop to help him, but fled pell-mell past the ox pen. Without torches to light their way, they stumbled and fell over stumps and broken branches. Within minutes, no one was left in the clearing but Kith-Kanan and the prone woodcutter.

Anaya came striding into the circle of light. Kith-Kanan grinned at her and held up a hand in greeting. She stalked past him to where the human lay. The flint knife was in her hand.

She rolled the unconscious human over. He was fairly young and had a red mustache. A thick gold ring gleamed from one earlobe. That, and the cut of his pants, told Kith-Kanan that the man had been a sailor at one time.

Anaya put a knee on the man’s chest. The human opened his eyes and saw a wildly painted creature, serrated flint knife in hand, kneeling on him. The creature’s face stared down with a ferocious grimace twisting its painted designs. The man’s eyes widened in terror, showing much white.

He tried to raise an arm to ward off Anaya, but Kith-Kanan was holding his wrists.

“Shall I cut out your eyes?” Anaya said coldly. “They would make fine decorations for my home.”

“No! No! Spare me!” gibbered the man.

“No? Then tell us what we want to know,” Kith-Kanan warned. “There was a white-haired elf boy here, yes?”

“Yes, wonderful lord!”

“And a griffon – a flying beast with an eagle’s forepart and a lion’s hindquarters?”

“Yes, yes!”

“What happened to them?”

“They were taken away by Voltorno,” the man moaned.

“Who’s Voltomo?” asked Kith-Kanan.

“A soldier. A terrible, cruel man. Lord Ragnarius sent him with us.”

“Why isn’t he here now?” Anaya hissed, pushing the ragged edge of her knife against his throat.

“He – He decided to take the elf boy and the beast back to Lord Ragnarius’s ship.”

Anaya and Kith-Kanan exchange looks. “How long ago did this Voltorno leave?” persisted Kith-Kanan.

“This morning,” the unfortunate sailor gasped.

“And how many are there in his party?”

“Ten. S – Six men-at-arms and four archers.”

Kith-Kanan stood up, releasing the man’s hands. “Let him up.

“No,” disagreed Anaya. “He must die.”

“That is not the way! If you kill him, how will you be any different from the men who hold Mackeli captive? You cannot be the same as those you fight and have any honor. You must be better.”

“Better?” she hissed, looking up at the prince. “Anything is better than tree-killing scum!”

“He is not responsible,” Kith-Kanan insisted. “He was ordered —”

“Whose hand held the axe?” Anaya interrupted.

Taking advantage of their argument, the sailor shoved Anaya off and scrambled to his feet. He ran after his comrades, bleating for help.

“Now you see? You let him get away,” Anaya said. She gathered herself to give chase, but Kith-Kanan told her, “Forget those humans! Mackeli is more important. We’ll have to catch up with them before they reach the coast.” Anaya sullenly did not reply. “Listen to me! We’re going to need all your talents. Call the corvae, the Black Crawlers, everything. Have them find the humans and try to delay them long enough so that we can catch up.”

She pushed him aside and stepped away. The big fire was dying, and the hacked out clearing was sinking into darkness. Now and then an ox grunted from the makeshift pen.

Anaya moved to the felled trees. She put a gentle hand on the trunk of one huge oak. “Why do they do it?” she asked mournfully. “Why do they cut down the trees? Can’t they hear the fabric of the forest split open each time a tree falls?” Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “There are spirits in the wildwood, spirits in the trees. They have murdered them with their metal.” Her haunted eyes looked up at the prince.

Kith-Kanan put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s much to be done. We must go.” Anaya drew a shuddering breath. After giving the tree a last gentle touch, she stooped to gather up her throwing stones.

Chapter 9

LATE SUMMER

Summer was fading. The harvests were coming in, and the markets of Silvanost were full of the fruits of the soil. Market week always brought a great influx of visitors to the city, not all of them Silvanesti. From the forests to the south and the plains to the west came the swarthy, painted Kagonesti. Up the Thon-Thalas came thick-walled boats from the dwarven kingdom, tall-masted, deep-sea vessels from the human realms in the far west. All these ascended the river to Fallan Island where Silvanost lay. It was an exciting time, full of strange sights, sounds, and smells. Exciting, that is, for the travelers. For the Silvanesti, who regarded these races flooding their land with distaste and distrust, it was a trying time.

Sithel sat on his throne in the Tower of the Stars, weary but attentive as clerics and nobles filed up to him to voice their complaints. His duties did not allow him respite from the incessant arguing and pleading.

“Great Sithel, what is to be done?” asked Firincalos, high priest of E’li. “The barbarians come to us daily, asking to worship in our temple. We turn them away and they grow angry, and the next day a new batch of hairy-faced savages appears, asking the same privilege.”

“The humans and dwarves are not the worst of it,” countered Zertinfinas, of the Temple of Matheri. “The Kagonesti deem themselves our equals and cannot be put off from entering the sacred precincts with filthy hands and feet and noxious sigils painted on their faces. Why, yesterday, some wild elves roughed up my assistant and spilled the sacred rosewater in the outer sanctum.”

“What would you have me do?” Sithel asked. “Place soldiers around all the temples? There are not enough royal guardsmen in House Protector to do that – not to mention that most of them are sons or grandsons of Kagonesti themselves.”

“Perhaps an edict, read in the Market, will convince the outsiders not to attempt to force their way into our holy places,” Firincalos noted. A murmur of approval ran through the assembly.

“All very well for you,” said Mhibelisina, high priestess of Quenesti Pah. “How can we who serve the goddess of healing turn away eager supplicants? It is part of our trust to admit the sick and injured. Can we discriminate between Silvanesti and Kagonesti, human, dwarf, and kender?”

“Yes. You must,” declared a voice silent until now.

All heads turned to the speaker’s left, where Sithas had been standing. He had been listening to the different factions present their views. A long time he’d been listening, and now he felt he must speak. The prince stepped down to floor level, with the assembled clerics, and faced his father.

“It is vital that the purity of our temples and our city be preserved,” he said with fervor. “We, the oldest and wisest race of Krynn, the longest lived, the most blessed, must keep ourselves above the hordes of lesser peoples who flood in, trying to partake of our grace and culture.” He lifted his hands. “Where there is not purity, there can be no Silvanost and no Silvanesti.”

Some of the clerics – not those of Quenesti Pah – bowed in appreciation of Sithas’s declaration. Behind them, however, the guildmasters looked distinctly unhappy. Sithel, looking down on his son, was nodding slowly. He looked over the prince’s head at the guildmasters, and bade them come forward.

“Highness,” said the master of the Jewelers Guild, “the outsiders bring many things we in Silvanesti do not have. The dwarves trade us the finest metal on Krynn for our foodstuffs and nectars. The humans bring expertly carved wood, the softest of leathers, wine, and oil. Even the kender contribute their share.”

“Their share of larceny,” muttered one of the clerics. Soft laughter rippled through the tower.

“Enough “Sithel commanded. His gaze rested once more on his son. “How do you propose we keep the foreigners out of our temples without losing their trade, which our nation does need?”

Sithas took a deep breath. “We can build an enclave here on Fa’lan Island, outside the city, and confine all trading to that point. No outsiders except valid ambassadors from other countries will be admitted within Silvanost’s walls. If the humans and others wish to pay homage to the gods, let them put up their own shrines in this new enclave.”

Sithel leaned back on his throne and stroked his chin. “An interesting notion. Why should the foreigners agree to it?”

“They do not want to lose the goods they get from us,” Sithas reasoned. “If they don’t agree, they will be turned away.” The clerics looked at him with undisguised admiration.

“A perfect solution!” Zertinfinas exclaimed.

“Proof of the wisdom of the speaker’s heir,” added Firincalos unctuously.

Sithel looked past them to the guildmasters. “What say you, good sirs? Does this notion of my son’s appeal to you?”

It did indeed. If the traders had to land at one specified point on Fallan, then the guilds could more easily impose landing fees on them. The various guildmasters voiced their approval loudly.

“Very well, let the plans be made,” Sithel decided. “The forming of the docks and walls I leave to the guild of master builders. Once the plans are chosen, the forming of the stones can begin.” As Sithel stood up, everyone bowed. “If that is all, then this audience is at an end.” The speaker gave Sithas a thoughtful look, then turned and left the hall by the door behind the throne.

The clerics closed around Sithas, congratulating him. Miritelisina asked him if he had a name in mind for the new trading enclave.

Sithas smiled and shook his head. “I have not considered it in such detail yet.”

“It should be named for you,” Firincalos said exuberantly. “Perhaps ‘Sithanost, the city of Sithas’. “

“No,” the prince said firmly. “That is not proper. Let it be something the outsiders will understand. ‘Thon-car, village on the Thon,’ something simple like that. I do not want it named after me.”

After freeing himself from the crowd, Sithas mounted the steps and went out the same door by which his father had left. His sedan chair awaited him outside. He climbed in and ordered, “to Quinari, at once.”

The slaves hoisted the carrying bars to their broad shoulders and set off at a trot.

Hermathya was waiting for him. The news had moved quickly through the palace, and she was brimming with delight at her husband’s triumph.

“You’ve won them,” she crowed, pouring Sithas a cup of cool water. “The clerics look upon you as their champion.”

“I said only what I believed,” Sithas noted quietly.

“True enough, but they will remember what you did, and they will support you in the future,” she insisted.

Sithas dampened his fingers in the last drops of the water and touched his face with his fingertips. “Why should I need their support?”

Hermathya looked surprised. “Haven’t you heard? Lady Nirakina has suggested to the Speaker that you be appointed as co-ruler, to share the burden of power with your father.”

Sithas was taken aback. “You’ve been listening from balconies again,” he said with displeasure.

“I have only your interests in my heart,” she said, a trifle coolly.

There was a long silence between them. Not much affection had grown between the firstborn and his beautiful wife since their marriage, and Sithas was growing more skeptical of her devotion with each passing day. Hermathya’s ambition was as obvious as the Tower of the Stars and twice as big.

“I will go and speak with my father,” Sithas said at last. Hermathya moved to join him. “Alone, Lady. I go alone.”

Hermathya turned away from him, her face blazing crimson.

*

A servant announced the prince, and Sithel gave permission for him to enter. It was mid-afternoon, and the speaker was immersed in a steaming hot pool, his head resting on a folded towel. His eyes were closed.

“Father?”

Sithel opened one eye. “Get in, why don’t you? The water is good and hot.”

“No, thank you.” Sithas took the direct approach. “Father, what is this I hear about mother wanting you to appoint me co-ruler?”

Sithel raised his head. “You do have your spies, don’t you?”

“Only one, and I do not pay her. She works on her own account.”

“Hermathya.” Sithel smiled when the prince nodded. “She has spirit, that girl. I daresay if it were possible she’d want to be co-ruler, too.”

“Yes, and bring the rest of Clan Oakleaf to rule with her. She already replaces palace servers with her own relatives. Soon we won’t be able to walk the halls without tripping over some Oakleaf cousin or other,” Sithas said.

“This is still House Royal,” replied his father confidently.

At that, Sithel sat up, roiling the hot mineral water. He reached for a beaker sitting on the rim of the pool, then shook a handful of brown and white crystals into the water. The steam was immediately scented with a rare, spicy musk. “Do you know why your mother asked me to make you co-ruler?”

“No,” Sithas replied.

“It was part of a compromise, actually. She wants me to call Kith-Kanan horned”

“Kith!” exclaimed Sithas, interrupting his father. “That is an excellent idea!”

Sithel held up a hand. “It would cause great dissent among the clerics and nobles. Kith-Kanan broke some of our most ardent laws. He threatened the very foundations of the House Royal. My anger with him has faded, and I could bring him home – if he would properly apologize. There are many, though, who would oppose my lenience.”

“But you are speaker,” Sithas argued. “What difference do the grumblings of a few priests make to you?”

Sithel smiled. “I cannot tear apart the nation for love of my son. Your mother said that to assuage the clerics I should name you co-ruler. Then they would be assured Kith-Kanan would have no part of the throne after my death.” Sithel gazed long into his eldest son’s troubled eyes. “Do you still want me to dismiss Lady Nirakina’s suggestion to make you my co-ruler?”

Sithas drew a long breath and let it out slowly. He knew that there was only one path to choose. He turned from the window. “If you seat me beside you on the throne, the people will say there is no Speaker of the Stars in Silvanost,” he said quietly.

“Explain that.”

“They will say great Sithel is old, not strong enough to rule alone. And they will say Sithas is too

young and has not the wisdom to be sole speaker. Two halves do not a speaker make.” He looked down at his father’s strong face. “You are the Speaker of the Stars. Do not relinquish one drop of your power or, as from a pinhole in a waterskin, it will all leak out and you will have nothing.”

“Do you know what this decision means?” Sithel demanded.

The prince made a fist and pressed it against his mouth. There were other words he wanted to say; he wanted to have Kith home and let the consequences be damned. But Sithas knew he must not let these words out. The future of Silvanesti was at stake.

“Then I will be Speaker, and will remain sole Speaker until the day the gods call me to a higher plane,” Sithel said after a long silence.

“And... Kith-Kanan?”

“I will not call him,” Sithel said grimly. “He must return on his own, as a supplicant begging for forgiveness.”

“Will mother be angry with you?” Sithas asked softly.

The speaker sighed and scooped steaming water up in his hands, letting it trickle down over his closed eyes. “You know your mother,” he said. “She will be hurt for a while, then she will find a cause to which she can devote herself, something to help her forget her pain.”

“Hermathya will be angry.” Of this, Sithas had no doubt.

“Don’t let her bully you,” counseled Sithel, wiping his face with his hands.

Sithas flushed. “I am your son. No one bullies me.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” After a pause, Sithel added, “I’ve just thought of another reason why you ought not want to be speaker just yet. I’m a husband, father, and monarch. So far, you’re only a husband.” A wry smile quirked his lips. “Have children. That will bring age and hasten wisdom.”

Chapter 10

FOUR DAYS ON THE TRAIL

Kith-Kanan and Anaya paused in their pursuit of Voltorno’s band. The half-human and his followers were headed almost due south, straight for the seacoast. Kith-Kanan was surprised when Anaya called a temporary halt. He was ready for anything, from a stealthy approach to a headlong, pitched battle. True, his feet ached and his hands were covered with cuts, but the knowledge that this Voltorno held not only Mackeli but his griffon steeled the prince to go on.

When he asked if she’d sensed Mackeli was near, Anaya said, “No. I smell animals nearby. It’s time to hunt. You stay here and don’t move around. I will return soon.”

Kith-Kanan settled down with his back against a tree. In short order, he fell asleep. The next thing he knew, Anaya had tossed a brace of rabbits in his lap.

“You snore,” she said irritably. “I could have had us venison, but your roaring chased the deer away. All I could get were these rabbits.” She frowned at the scrawny little animals. “These must have been deaf.”

Quickly Anaya gutted and skinned the animals, then speared them over a twig fire. Kith-Kanan was impressed; her deftness was amazing. She dressed each rabbit in two strokes and started a fire with one nick of her flint against a blue fieldstone. Kith-Kanan doubted he could strike a spark at all against such a common, frangible rock.

She bent to tend the fire. Kith-Kanan watched her back for a moment, then he put down the rabbit. Quietly he unbuckled his sword belt and let it down soundlessly to the ground. He added his dagger to the pile. Then, using the steps Mackeli had taught him, he crept up behind Anaya.

She straightened, still with her back to him. When he was two feet from her, she whirled, presenting the point of her knife to his face.

“You smell better without the metal, but you still breathe too loud,” she said.

He pushed the flint knife aside and finished the step that brought them nose to nose. “Perhaps it’s not my breathing you hear, but my heart. I can hear yours, too,” he said teasingly.

Her brows knotted. “Liar.”

Kith-Kanan put a finger to her cheek and began tapping lightly. “Is that the rhythm?” he said. It was, and the look of consternation on Anaya’s face was delightful to him. She pushed him away.

“We’ve no time for games,” she said. “Pick up your metal. We can walk and eat at the same time.”

She moved on through the trees. Kith-Kanan watched her curiously as he buckled his swordbelt. Funny-looking Anaya, with painted face and most of her hair cropped shorter than his. He found himself taking pleasure in watching the easy way she wove through her forest home. There was a certain nobility about her.

The corvae circled ceaselessly, bringing Anaya news of the humans. Kith-Kanan and Anaya had followed them hotly all day, while the humans moved in a more leisurely manner. The prince felt ragged with fatigue, but he would not show weakness as long as Anaya remained bright and quick. Trouble was, she didn’t show any signs of tiring.

It was well past midday, and for the fourth time she had held up her hand and bid Kith-Kanan be still while she scouted ahead. Sighing, he sat down on a lichen-spotted boulder. Anaya vanished into the pallid green saplings as Kith-Kanan took out his dagger and absently began cleaning his fingernails.

Seconds lengthened into minutes, and the prince began to think Anaya was taking too long. Her reconnaissance forays never took more than a minute or two, sometimes only a few seconds. He slipped his dagger into the top of his leggings and listened hard. Nothing.

A crow alighted at his feet. He stared down at the black bird, which regarded him silently, its beady eyes seeming quite intelligent. Kith-Kanan stood up, and the crow flapped into the air, circled around, and settled on his shoulder. He spared a nervous glance at the bird’s sharp, pointed beak so close to his face. “You have something to show me?” he whispered. The crow cocked its head first left, then right. “Anaya? Mackeli?” The crow bobbed its head vigorously.

Kith-Kanan set out along the same path Anaya had gone down just a few minutes earlier. The crow actually directed him with pokes of its sharp beak. One hundred paces from a large boulder, Kith-Kanan heard the clinking of metal on metal. Ten steps more, and the faint whiff of smoke came to his nose. The crow plucked at his ear. Its beak stabbed painfully, and Kith Kanan resisted the urge to swat the bird away. Then he saw what the crow was warning him about.

Ahead on the ground was a net, spread flat and covered with leaves. He knew the type; he’d often set such traps himself, for wild boar. Kith-Kanan squatted by the edge of the net and looked for trip lines or snare loops. He couldn’t see any. Circling to his left, he followed the perimeter of the trap until the ground dropped away into a dry wash ravine. From there the smell of wood smoke was stronger. Kith-Kanan skidded a few feet down the bank and crept along, his head just below the level of the ground. Every now and then he would peek up and see where he was going. The third time he did this, Kith-Kanan got quite a shock. He put his head up and found himself staring into the eyes of a human – a dead human, lying on his back with his eyes wide and staring. The human’s throat had been cut by a serrated knife.

The man wore rough woolen clothing, the seams of which were white with dried salt. Another sailor. There was a tattoo of a seahorse on the back of the dead man’s hand.

Rough laughter filtered through the trees. As Kith-Kanan climbed out of the ravine and made for the sound, the crow spread its wings and flew away.

More ugly, cruel-sounding laughter. Kith-Kanan moved to his right, keeping a thick-trunked pine tree between him and the source of the sound. He dropped down to the ground and looked around the tree.

He saw six men standing in a glade. A smoky little fire burned on the right. On the left, wrapped in the folds of a heavy rope net, was Anaya. She looked defiant and unharmed.

“Are you sure it’s female?” queried one of the men who held a crossbow.

“It ‘pears to be.’Ere, tell us what you are!” said another. He poked at Anaya with the tip of his saber. She shrank from the blade.

“What’ll we do with her, Parch?” asked a third human.

“Sell ‘er, like the other. She’s too ugly to be anything but a slave,” noted the crossbowman. The men roared with coarse laughter.

Through the loops in the net, Anaya’s eyes shone with hatred. She looked past her tormentors and saw, peeking around a tree, Kith-Kanan. He put a hand to his lips. Quiet, he willed her. Keep quiet.

“Smells a bit, don’t she?” sneered the crossbowman called Parch, a lanky fellow with a drooping yellow mustache. He put down his weapon and picked up a heavy wooden bucket full of water. He flung the water on Anaya.

Kith-Kanan thought quickly. The leader, Voltorno, didn’t seem to be present; these men acted callous and loud, like many soldiers did when their commander was absent. Retreating a few yards, the prince started around the glade. He hadn’t gone more than a half-score steps when his foot snagged a trip line. Kith-Kanan dodged a spike-studded tree limb that was released, but the noise alerted the men. They bared their weapons and started into the woods, leaving one man to guard Anaya.

Standing with his back hard against a sticky pine, Kith-Kanan drew his sword. A human came crunching through the fallen leaves, appallingly noisy. The salty-fishy smell of his sailor’s jersey preceded him. Kith-Kanan timed the man’s steps and, when he was close, sprang out from behind the tree.

“By the dragon’s beard!” exclaimed the man. He held out his saber warily. Without any preliminaries, Kith-Kanan attacked. Their blades clanged together, and the human shouted, “Over here, over here!” Other shouts echoed in the forest. In moments, Kith-Kanan would be hopelessly outnumbered.

The human’s saber had little point for thrusting, so the elf prince jabbed his blade straight at the man, who gave ground clumsily. He was a seaman, not a warrior, and when he stumbled over a stone as he was backing away, Kith-Kanan ran him through. This was the first person he’d ever killed, but there was no time for reflection. As quietly as he could the prince ran to the glade. The other men were converging on their dead comrade, so that meant only one man stood between him and Anaya.

He hurtled into the glade, sword upraised. The guard – the one called Parch – gave a shrill cry of fright and reached for his weapon, a crossbow. Kith-Kanan was on him in a flash. He struck the crossbow from Parch’s hands with a single sweep of his sword. The man staggered back, groping for the dagger he wore at his waist. Kith-Kanan advanced on him. Parch drew the dagger. Kith-Kanan easily beat aside the far shorter weapon and left poor Parch bleeding on the ground.

“Are you all right?” he shouted to Anaya as he hacked open the net. It spilled open, and Anaya nimbly leaped out.

“Filthy humans! I want to kill them!” she snarled.

“There’s too many. Better to hide for now,” Kith-Kanan cried.

She ignored him and went to the fire, where her flint knife lay on the ground. Before Kith-Kanan could protest, she drew the sharp stone across her arm, drawing scarlet blood. “They will die!” she declared. And with that, she dashed into the woods.

“Anaya, wait!” Kith-Kanan frantically followed her.

A hoarse scream sounded from his left. Feet churned through the leaves, running. A human, still holding his saber, ran toward the prince, his bearded face a mask of fear. Kith-Kanan stood in his way. The man traded cuts with him briefly, then threw his sword away and ran for his life.

Confused, the Silvanesti trotted in the direction from which the bearded man had come, then stumbled upon the corpse of the man who had poked Anaya with his saber. No wonder the bearded human had been terrified. This other man’s throat had been cut from ear to ear. Kith-Kanan clenched his teeth and moved on. He found another human, killed in the same manner.

The woods had fallen quiet, and the elf prince stepped carefully, suspecting an ambush. What he found instead nearly stopped his heart. Anaya had caught a third human and killed him, but not before the man had put a crossbow quarrel into her hip. She had dragged herself a few yards and had come to rest with both arms around an oak sapling.

Before Kith-Kanan knelt by her, he shoved his sword in its scabbard and gently pulled the blood-soaked deerskin away from her wound. The head of the quarrel had missed her hip bone, thank E’li, and was buried in the flesh between her hip and ribs. A nasty wound, but not a fatal one.

“I must take the arrow out,” he explained. “But I can’t pull it out the way it came in. I’ll have to push it through.”

“Do what must be done,” she gasped – her eyelids squeezed shut.

His hands shook. Though he had seen hunters and soldiers injured before, never had Kith-Kanan had to deal with their wounds personally. He tore the leather fletching off the arrow and placed his hands on it. Steeling himself, he pushed on the nock end. Anaya stiffened and sucked air in sharply through her clenched teeth. He pushed until he could feel the iron arrow head in his other hand, beneath her body.

She didn’t utter a sound, which made Kith-Kanan marvel at her courage. Once the quarrel was free, he threw it away. Then he unslung his waterskin and gently washed the wound clean. He needed something to bind it with. Under the green leather tunic Mackeli had fashioned for him, he still wore his shirt of linen. At last Kith-Kanan pulled off his tunic and tore the fine Silvanost linen into strips.

He tied the longest strips together to make a bandage, then began to wind it around Anaya’s waist. Kith-Kanan split and tied the ends of the bandage, then gently hoisted Anaya in his arms. She was very light, and he carried her easily back to the glade. There he laid her in a patch of soft ferns, then dragged the dead men into the covering of the woods.

Anaya called for water. He put the skin to her lips, and she drank. After a few gulps she said weakly, “I heard them say Mackeli and your flying beast had been taken ahead to the ship. They knew we were following them. Their master, Voltorno, is half-human, and by means of magic he knew we were coming after them.”

“Half-human?” Kith-Kanan asked. He had heard whisperings of such crossbreeds, but had never seen one.

“Voltorno had his men stay behind to trap us.” Kith-Kanan put the skin to her mouth again. When she had finished, she added, “You must leave me and go after Mackeli.”

He knew she was right. “Are you sure you will be all right by yourself?”

“The forest won’t hurt me. Only the intruders would do that, and they are ahead of us, carrying Mackeli. You must hurry.”

With little delay the elf prince left the Kagonesti the waterskin and laid one of the men’s abandoned cloaks over her. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “With Mackeli and Arcuballis.”

The sun was sinking fast as Kith-Kanan plunged into the brush. He made great speed and covered a mile or more in minutes. There was a salty smell in the air. The sea was near.

Ahead, moonlight glinted off metal. As he ran, Kith-Kanan spied the backs of two men dragging a smaller person through the brush. Mackeli! He had a halter tied around his neck, and he stumbled along behind his much taller captors. The prince shouldered the crossbow and put a quarrel in the back of the human who was leading Mackeli. The second man saw his partner fall and, without pausing, he grabbed the halter rope and ran, jerking Mackeli forward.

Kith-Kanan followed. He leaped over the man he’d shot and let out the wailing cry elven hunters use when on the chase. The weird cry was too much for the man leading Mackeli. He flung the rope away and ran as hard as he could. Kith-Kanan loosed a quarrel after him, but the human passed between some trees and the shot missed.

He reached Mackeli, pausing long enough to cut the strangling rope from the boy’s neck.

“Kith!” he cried. “Is Ny with you?”

“Yes, not far away,” Kith-Kanan said. “Where’s my griffon?”

“Voltorno has him. He put a spell on your beast to make him obey.”

Kith-Kanan gave Mackeli the dagger. “Wait here. I’ll come back for you.”

“Let me go too! I can help!” the boy said.

“No!” Mackeli looked stubborn, so Kith-Kanan added, “I need you to stay here in case Voltorno gets past me and comes back this way.” Mackeli’s belligerence vanished, and he nodded. He positioned himself on guard with his dagger as Kith-Kanan ran on.

The boom of the surf rose above the sound of the wind. The forest ended abruptly atop a cliff, and Kith-Kanan had to dig in his heels to avoid plunging over the precipice. The night was bright. Solinari and Lunitari were up; moonlight and starlight silvered the scene below. With his keen vision, Kith-Kanan could see a three-masted ship wallowing in the offshore swells, its sails furled tightly against the yards.

A path led down the cliffside to the beach below. The first thing Kith-Kanan saw was Arcuballis, picking its way along the narrow path. The griffon’s glow stood out strongly against the fainter ones of its captors. A red-caped figure – presumably the half-human Volterno – led the griffon by its bridle. A human trailed restlessly behind the beast. Kith-Kanan stood up against the starry sky and loosed a quarrel at him. The man felt the quarrel pass through the sleeve of his tunic, and he screamed. Right away a swarm of men appeared on the beach. They moved out from the base of the cliff and showered arrows up at Kith-Kanan.

“Halloo,” called a voice from below. Kith-Kanan cautiously raised his head. The figure in the red cape moved away from the captive griffon and stood out on the beach in plain sight. “Halloo up there! Can you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Kith-Kanan shouted in reply. “Give me back my griffon!”

“I can’t give him back. That beast is the only profit I’ll realize on this voyage. You’ve got the boy back, leave the animal and go on your way.”

“No! Surrender Arcuballis! I have you in my sight,” Kith-Kanan warned.

“No doubt you do, but if you shoot me, my men will kill the griffon. Now, I don’t want to die, and I’m certain you don’t want a dead griffon either. What would you say to fighting for the beast in an honorable contest with swords?”

“How do I know you won’t try some treachery?”

The half-human flung off his cape. “I doubt that will be necessary.”

Kith-Kanan didn’t trust him, but before the elf could say anything more, the half-human had taken a lantern from one of his men and was striding up the steep path to the top of the cliff, leading the griffon as he came. Arcuballis, usually so spirited, hung its head as it walked. The powerful wings had been pinioned by leather straps, and a muzzle made from chain mail covered the griffon’s hooked beak.

“You have bewitched my animal,” Kith-Kanan said furiously.

Voltorno tied the bridle to a tree and set the lantern on a waist-high boulder. “It is necessary.” As the half-human faced Kith-Kanan, the elf studied him carefully. He was quite tall, and in the lantern’s glow his hair was golden. A fine, downy beard covered his cheeks and chin, revealing his human heritage, but Voltorno’s ears were slightly pointed, denoting elven blood. His clothes and general bearing were far more refined than any of the humans with him.

“Are you sure you have enough light to see?” Kith-Kanan asked sarcastically, gesturing at the lantern.

Voltorno smiled brilliantly. “Oh, that isn’t for me. It’s for my men. They would hate to miss the show.”

When Kith-Kanan presented his sword, Voltorno complimented him on the weapon. “The pattern is a bit old-fashioned, but very handsome. I shall enjoy using it after you’re dead,” he smirked.

The sailors lined the beach below to watch the duel. They cheered Voltorno and jeered Kith-Kanan as the two duelists circled each other warily. The half-human’s blade flickered in, reaching for Kith-Kanan’s heart. The elf parried, rolled the slim Ergothian rapier aside, and lunged with his stouter elven point.

Voltorno laughed and steered Kith-Kanan’s thrust into the ground. He tried to stomp on the prince’s blade, to snap the stiff iron, but Kith-Kanan drew back, avoiding the seafarer’s heavy boots.

“You fight well,” Voltorno offered. “Who are you? Despite the rags you wear, you are no wild elf.”

“I am Silvanesti. That is all you need to know,” Kith-Kanan said tightly.

Voltorno smiled, pleasantly enough. “So much pride. You think I am some renegade.”

“It is easy to see which race you have chosen to serve,” Kith-Kanan said.

“The humans, for all their crudity, have appreciation for talent. In your nation I would be an outcast, lowest of the low. Among the humans, I am a very useful fellow. I could find a place for you in my company. As I rise, so could you. We would go far, elf.”

Voltorno spoke in an increasingly obvious lilt. His words rose and fell in a sort of sing-song intonation that Kith-Kanan found peculiar. The half-human was only a few feet from Kith-Kanan, and the elf prince saw that he was making small, slow gestures with his free hand.

“I owe my allegiance elsewhere,” Kith-Kanan stated. His sword felt heavy in his hand.

“Pity.” With renewed vigor, Voltorno attacked. Kith-Kanan fought him off clumsily, for the very air was beginning to seem thick, impeding his movements. As their blades tangled, Kith-Kanan lost his plan of defense and Voltorno’s steel slipped by his hilt and pierced his upper arm, The half-human stepped back, still smiling like a beneficent cleric.

The weapon fell from Kith-Kanan’s numb hand. He stared at it in dawning horror. His fingers had no more feeling than wood or wax. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick. A terrifying lethargy gripped him. Though in his mind he was yelling and fighting, his voice and limbs would not obey. Magic... it was magic. Voltorno had bewitched Arcuballis, now him.

Voltorno sheathed his own sword and picked up Kith-Kanan’s. “How splendidly ironic it will be to kill you with your own sword,” he noted. Then he raised the weapon —

And it flew from his hand! Voltorno looked down at his chest and the quarrel that had suddenly appeared there. His knees buckled, and he fell.

Mackeli stepped out of the dark ring of trees, a crossbow in his hands. Kith-Kanan staggered back away from the half-human. His strength was returning, in spite of the wound in his arm. Like a river freed from a dam, feeling rushed back into his body. He picked up his sword and heard shouts from the beach. The humans were coming to aid their fallen leader.

“So,” said the half-human through bloody lips, “you triumph after all.” He grimaced and touched his fingers to the quarrel in his chest. “Go ahead, end it.”

Already the humans were running up the steep path toward them. “I’ve no time to waste on you,” spat Kith-Kanan contemptuously. He wanted to sound strong, but his narrow escape had left him shaken.

He took Mackeli by the arm and hurried to Arcuballis. The boy hung back as Kith-Kanan removed the muzzle from the griffon’s beak and cut the leather pinions from its wings. The fire was returning to the griffon’s eyes. The creature clawed the ground with its talons.

Kith-Kanan touched his forehead to the beast’s feathered head and said, “It’s good to see you, old fellow.” He heard the commotion as the humans came roaring up the cliffside. Mounting the griffon, Kith-Kanan slid forward in the saddle and said, “Climb on, Mackeli.” The elf boy looked uncertain. “Hurry, the spell is broken but Voltorno’s men are coming!”

After another second’s hesitation, Mackeli grasped Kith-Kanan’s hand and swung into the saddle behind him. Armed sailors appeared on top of the cliff, and they rushed to Voltorno. Behind them came a tall human with a full, red-brown beard. He pointed to the elves. “Stop them!” he cried in a booming voice.

“Hold on!” shouted Kith-Kanan. He slapped the reins across Arcuballis’s neck, and the griffon bounded toward the men. They dropped and scattered like leaves in a whirlwind. Another leap and Arcuballis cleared the edge of the cliff. Mackeli gave a short, sharp cry of fear, but Kith-Kanan yelled with pure joy. Some of the humans got to their feet and loosed arrows at them, but the distance was too great. Kith-Kanan steered Arcuballis out over the foaming surf, turned, and gained height. As they swept past the site of the duel, he saw the red-bearded fellow raise Voltorno to his feet. That one wasn’t going to die easily, the prince noted.

“It’s good to see you!” Kith-Kanan shouted over his shoulder. “You saved my life, you know.”

There was no response from Mackeli and Kith-Kanan asked, “Are you well?”

“I was weller on the ground,” Mackeli said, his voice high with anxiety. He tightened his fierce grip on Kith-Kanan’s waist as he asked, “Where are we going?”

“To fetch Anaya. Hold tight!”

The griffon gave voice to its own triumphant cry. The trilling roar burst over the wildwood, announcing their return to the waiting Anaya.

Chapter 11

EARLY AUTUMN, YEAR OF THE HAWK

The traditional way across the river to Silvanost was by ferry. Large, flat-bottomed barges were drawn back and forth across the Thon-Thalas by giant turtles. Some time in the distant past, priests of the Blue Phoenix, god of all animal life, had woven the spells that brought the first giant turtles into being.

They had taken a pair of common river turtles, usually the size of a grown elf’s palm, and worked their spells over them until they were as big as houses. Thereafter, the priests bred their own giants, creating quite a sizeable herd. The vast green domes of the turtles’ shells had become a common sight as the placid beasts gave faithful service for many centuries.

Lady Nirakina stood on the riverbank, watching a barge of refugees, pulled by just such a turtle, arrive from the west bank. Beside her stood Tamanier Ambrodel, his arm still in a sling. A month had passed since the Trial Days, and during that time more and more settlers from the western plains and forests had retreated to Silvanost for protection.

“How many does that make?” asked Nirakina, shading her eyes to see the crowded barge.

Tamanier checked the tally he was keeping. “Four hundred and nineteen, my lady,” he said. “And more coming all the time.”

The settlers were mostly from the poorer families of Silvanesti who had gone west to work new land and make new lives for themselves.

Though largely unharmed, they were footsore, exhausted, and demoralized. Their stories were all the same: bands of humans and Kagonesti elves had burned down their houses and orchards and ordered them to leave. The Silvanesti, unarmed and unorganized, had little choice but to pack their meager belongings and trek back to Silvanost.

Nirakina had received her husband’s blessing to organize relief for the displaced settlers. A field along the southern end of the city was set aside for them, and a shanty town of tents and lean-tos had sprung up in the last few weeks. Nirakina had persuaded many of the city guilds and great temples to contribute food, blankets, and money for the care of the refugees.

Sithel was doing all he could for the refugees, too, but his job was made far more complicated by the demands of the state. The Tower of the Stars was filled daily with petitioners who entreated the speaker to call together the army and clear the plains of the raiders. Sithel quite rightly realized this was not a practical solution. A big, slow-moving army would never catch small, mobile raider bands.

“Our neighbors to the west, Thorbardin and Ergoth, would be very unhappy to see an elven army on their borders,” Sithel told his more bellicose nobles. “It would be an invitation to war, and that is an invitation I will not countenance.”

So the refugees continued to come, first in a trickle, then in a steady stream. As he was acquainted with them and knew first-hand the problems they faced, Tamanier Ambrodel was chosen by Lady Nirakina to be her chief assistant. He proved a tireless worker, but even with his efforts, the camp along the riverbank became dirty and rowdy as more and more frightened settlers swelled its ranks. A pall of smoke and fear hovered over the refugee camp. It did not take long for the residents of Silvanost to lose their sympathy and regard the refugees with disgust.

This day Nirakina had gone down to the water’s edge to speak to the refugees as they came ashore. The weary, grimy travelers were amazed to see the speaker’s wife waiting on the muddy bank, her richly made gown trailing in the mud, only Tamanier Ambrodel standing beside her.

“They are so sad, so tired,” she murmured to him. He stood by her side making notations on a wax tablet.

“It’s a sad thing to lose your home and those you love best, my lady.” Tamanier filled a square of twenty and blocked it off. “That makes two hundred and twenty in one barge, including sixty-six humans and half-humans.” He eyed her uncertainly. “The speaker will not be pleased that those not of our blood are entering the city.”

“I know the speaker’s heart,” Nirakina said a little sharply. Her slight figure bristled with indignation. “It is the others at court who want to cause trouble for these poor folk.”

An elf woman struggled ashore from a small boat, carrying a baby in her arms. She slipped and fell to her knees in the muddy water. Other exhausted refugees tramped past her. Nirakina, without hesitation, waded into the press of silent people and helped the elf woman to her feet. Their eyes met, and the raggedly dressed woman said, “Thank you, my lady.”

With nothing else to say, she held her child to her shoulder and slogged ashore. Nirakina was standing, openly admiring the woman’s dogged courage, when a hand touched her arm.

“You’d best be careful, Lady,” Tamanier said.

Unheeding, Nirakina replied, “The priests and nobles will fume about this, about the mixed-blood people especially.” Her serene expression darkened. “They should all be made to come here and see the poor innocents they would deny comfort and shelter!”

Tamanier gently tugged Lady Nirakina back to the riverbank.

*

On the other side of the city, the Tower of the Stars rang with denunciations of the refugees.

“When the gods created the world, they made our race first, to be the guardians of right and truth,” declared Firincalos, high priest of E’li. “It is our sacred duty to preserve ourselves as the gods made us, a pure race, always recognizable as Silvanesti.”

“Well said! Quite true!” The assembly of nobles and clerics called out in rising voices.

Sithas watched his father. The speaker listened placidly to all this, but he did not look pleased. It was not so much that his father disagreed with the learned Firincalos; Sithas had heard similar sentiments espoused before. But he knew the speaker hated to be lectured to by anyone, for any reason.

Since the Trial Days, Sithas had been at his father’s side daily, taking a hand in the day-to-day administration of the country. He’d learned new respect for Sithel when he saw how his father managed to balance the pleas of the priests, the ideas of the nobles, and the needs of the guilds against his own philosophy of what was best for Silvanesti.

Sithas had learned respect – but not admiration. He believed his father was too flexible, gave in too often to the wrong people. It surprised him, for he had always thought of Sithel as a strong ruler. Why didn’t he simply command obedience instead of constantly compromising?

Sithel waved for the assembled elves to be quiet. Miritelisina, high priestess of Quenesti Pah, was standing, seeking the speaker’s grant to comment. The hall quieted, and Sithel bade Miritelisina begin.

“I must ask the pure and righteous Firincalos what he would do with the husbands, wives, and children now languishing in huts along the riverbank, those who are not pure in our blood yet who have the deepest ties to some number of our race?” Her rich voice filled the high tower. In her youth, Miritelisina had been a renowned singer, and she played upon her listeners with all her old skills. “Shall we throw them into the river? Shall we drive them from the island, back onto the swords and torches of the bandits who drove them east?”

A few harsh voices cried “Yes!” to her questions.

Sithas folded his arms and studied Miritelisina. She cut a regal figure in her sapphire headband and white robe with its trailing, sky-blue sash. Her waist-length, flaxen hair rippled down her back as she swept a pointing finger over the mostly male crowd of elves.

“Shame on you all!” she shouted. “Is there no mercy in Silvanost? The humans and half-humans are not here because they want to be! Evil has been done to them, evil that must be laid at someone’s door. But to treat them like animals, to deny them simple shelter, is likewise evil. My holy brothers, is this the way of rightness and truth of which the honorable Firincalos speaks? It does not sound that way to me. I would more expect to hear such harsh sentiments from devotees of the Dragonqueen!”

Sithas stiffened. The willful priestess had gone too far! Firincalos and his colleagues thought so, too. They pushed to the front of the crowd, outraged at being compared to the minions of the Queen of Evil. The air thickened with denunciations, but Sithel, sitting back on his throne, did nothing to restrain the angry clerics.

Sithas turned to his father. “May I speak?” he asked calmly. “I’ve been waiting for you to take a stand,” Sithel said impatiently. “Go ahead. But remember, if you swim with snakes, you may get bitten.”

Sithas bowed to his father. “This is a hard time for our people,” he began loudly. The wrangling on the floor subsided, and the prince lowered his voice. “It is evident from events in the West that the humans, probably with the support of the emperor of Ergoth, are trying to take over our plains and woodland provinces, not by naked conquest, but by displacing our farmers and traders. Terror is their tool, and so far it is working far better than they could have dreamed. I tell you this first and ask you all to remember who is responsible for the situation in which we now find ourselves.”

Sithel nodded with satisfaction. Sithas noted his father’s reaction and went on.

“The refugees come to Silvanost seeking our protection, and we cannot fail to give it. It is our duty. We protect those not of our race because they have come on bended knee, as subjects must do before their lords. It is only right and proper that we shield them from harm, not only because the gods teach the virtue of mercy, but also because these are the people who grow our crops, sell our goods, who pay their taxes and their fealty.” A murmur passed through the assembly. Sithas’s calm, rational tone, so long honed in debates with the priests of Matheri, dampened the anger that had reigned earlier. The clerics relaxed from their previous trembling outrage. Miritelisina smiled faintly.

Sithas dropped his hands to his hips and looked over the gathering with stern resolve. “But make no mistake! The preservation of our race is of the greatest importance. Not merely the purity of our blood, but the purity of our customs, traditions, and laws. For that reason, I ask the speaker to decree a new place of refuge for the settlers, on the western bank of the Thon-Thalas, for the sole purpose of housing all humans and half-humans. Further, I suggest that all non-Silvanesti be sent across to there from the current tent village.”

There was a moment of silence as the assembly took in this idea, then the tower erupted with calls of “Well spoken! Well said!”

“What about the husbands and wives who are full-blooded Silvanesti?” demanded Miritelisina. “They may go with their families, of course,” replied Sithas evenly.

“They should be made to go,” insisted Damroth, priest of Kiri Jolith. “They are an insult to our heritage.”

Sithel rapped the arm of his throne with his massive signet ring. The sound echoed through the Tower of the Stars. Instant silence claimed the hall.

“My son does me honor,” the speaker said. “Let all he has said be done.” The priestess of Quenesti Pah opened her mouth to protest, but Sithel rapped on his throne again, as a warning. “Those Silvanesti who have taken humans as mates will go with their kin. They have chosen their path, now they must follow it. Let it be done.”

He stood, a clear signal that the audience was over. The assembly bowed deeply as one and filed out. In a few minutes, only Sithel and Sithas were left.

“That Miritelisina,” said Sithel wryly. “She’s a woman of extreme will.”

“She’s too sentimental,” Sithas complained, coming to his father’s side. “I didn’t notice her offering to take the half-breeds into her temple.”

“No, but she’s spent a third of the temple treasury on tents and firewood, I hear.” The speaker rubbed his brow with one hand and sighed gustily. “Do you think it will come to war? There’s no real proof Ergoth is behind these attacks.”

Sithas frowned. “These are not ordinary bandits. Ordinary bandits don’t scorn gold in favor of wrecking fruit trees. I understand this new emperor, Ullves X, is an ambitious young schemer.

Perhaps if we confront him directly, he would restrain the ‘bandits’ now at liberty in our western lands.”

Sithel looked doubtful. “Humans are difficult to deal with. They have more guile than kender, and their rapaciousness can make a goblin pale. And yet, they know honor, loyalty, and courage. It would be easier if they were all cruel or all noble, but as it is, they are mostly... difficult.” Rising from the throne, the speaker added, “Still, talk is cheaper than war. Prepare a letter to the emperor of Ergoth. Ask him to send an emissary for the purpose of ending the strife on the plains. Oh, you’d better send a similar note to the king of Thorbardin. They have a stake in this, too.”

“I will begin at once,” Sithas assented, bowing deeply.

*

Usually, diplomatic notes to foreign rulers would be composed by professional scribes, but Sithas sat down at the onyx table in his private room and began the letter himself. He dipped a fine stylus in a pot of black ink and wrote the salutation. “To His Most Excellent and Highborn Majesty, Ullves X, Emperor, Prince of Daltigoth, Grand Duke of Colem, etc., etc.” The prince shook his head. Humans dearly loved titles; how they piled them after their names. “From Sithel, Speaker of the Stars, Son of Silvanos. Greetings, Royal Brother.”

Hermathya burst into the room, red-gold hair disheveled, mantle askew. Sithas was so startled he dropped a blot of ink on the page, spoiling the fine vellum.

“Sithas!” she exclaimed breathlessly, rushing toward him. “They are rioting!”

“Who’s rioting?” he growled irritably.

“The farmers – the settlers lately come from the West. Word got out that the speaker was going to force them to leave Silvanost, and they began to smash and burn things. A band of them attacked the Market! Parts of it are on fire!”

Sithas rushed to the balcony. He threw aside the heavy brocade curtain and stepped out. His rooms faced away from the Market district, but through the muggy autumn air he caught the distant sounds of screaming.

“Has the royal guard been turned out?” he asked, returning inside quickly.

Hermathya inhaled deeply, her pale skin flushed as she tried to get her breathing under control. “I think so. I saw warriors headed that way. My sedan chair was blocked by a column of guards, so I got out and ran to the palace.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said sternly. Sithas imagined Hermathya running down the street like some wild Kagonesti. What would the common folk think, seeing his wife dashing through town like a wild thing?

When she planted her hands on her hips, the prince noticed that Hermathya’s mantle had slipped down, leaving one white shoulder bare. Her flame-bright hair had escaped its confining clasp and tendrils streamed around her reddened face. Her blush deepened at Sithas’s words.

“I thought it important to bring you the news!”

“The news would have come soon enough,” he stated tersely. He pulled a bell cord for a servant. An elf maid appeared with silent efficiency. “A bowl of water and a towel for Lady Hermathya,” Sithas commanded. The maid bowed and departed.

Hermathya flung off her dusty mantle. “I don’t need water!” she exclaimed angrily. “I want to know what you’re going to do about the riot!”

“The warriors will quell it,” the prince stated flatly as he returned to the table. When he saw that the parchment was ruined, Sithas frowned at the letter.

“Well, I hope no harm comes to Lady Nirakina!” she added.

Sithas ceased twirling the stylus in his fingers. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

“Your mother is out there, in the midst of the fighting!”

He seized Hermathya by the arms. His grip was so tight, a gasp was wrenched from his wife. “Don’t lie to me, Hermathya! Why should Mother be in that part of the city?”

“Don’t you know? She was at the river with that Ambrodel fellow, helping the poor wretches.”

Sithas released her quickly, and she staggered back a step. He thought fast. Then, turning to an elegant wardrobe made of flamewood, he pulled his street cloak off its peg and flipped it around his shoulders. On another peg was a sword belt holding a slender sword, the twin of his brother’s. He buckled the belt around his waist. It settled lopsidedly around his narrow hips.

“I’m going to find my mother,” he declared.

Hermathya grabbed her mantle. “I’ll go with you!”

“You will not,” he said firmly. “It isn’t seemly for you to roam the streets. You will stay here.”

“I will do as I please!”

Hermathya started for the door, but Sithas caught her wrist and pulled her back. Her eyes blazed furiously.

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know about the danger!” she hissed.

Voice tight with control, Sithas replied, “Lady, if you wish to remain in my good graces, you will do as I say.”

She stuck out her chin. “Oh? And if I don’t, what will you do? Strike me?” Sithas felt impaled by her deep blue eyes and, in spite of his anxiety about his mother, he felt a surge of passion. The starjewel at Hermathya’s throat flashed. There was color in her cheeks to match the heat in her eyes.

Their life together had been so cold. So little fire, so little emotion. Her arms were smooth and warm in Sithas’s hands as he leaned close. But in the instant before their lips met, Hermathya whispered, “I will do as I please!”

The prince pushed his wife back and turned away, breathing deeply to calm himself. She used her beauty like a weapon, not only on the commoners, but even on him. Sithas closed the collar of his cloak with a trembling hand.

“Find my father. Tell the speaker what has happened and what I intend to do.”

“Where is the speaker?” she said sulkily.

He snapped, “I don’t know. Why don’t you look for him?” Without another word, Sithas hurried from the room.

On his way out, the prince passed the servant as she returned with a bowl of tepid water and a soft, white towel. The elf maiden stood aside to let Sithas pass, then presented the bowl to Hermathya. She scowled at the girl, then, with one hand, knocked the basin from the servant’s hands. The bronze bowl hit the marble floor with a clang, splashing Hermathya’s feet with water.

Chapter 12

IDYLL AT THE END OF SUMMER

Arcuballis lowered its head to the clear water and drank. Not far from the hollow tree, where Anaya and Mackeli lived, a spring welled up from deep underground, creating a large, still pool. The water spilled over the lip of one side of the pool, cascading down natural steps of granite and bluestone.

It was two days after Kith-Kanan had flown them all safely home. He had come to the pool daily since then to bathe his wounded arm. Though tender, it was a clean wound and showed every sign of healing well.

Despite her own injury, Anaya would not let Kith-Kanan carry her to the pool. Instead, she directed Mackeli to bring her certain roots and leaves, from which she made a poultice. As Kith-Kanan watched her chew the medicinal leaves herself, he listened for the fourth time to Mackeli’s tale of capture and captivity.

“And then Voltorno told the woodcutters there were no evil spirits in the forest, and they believed him, until they came running back down the trail, screaming and falling on their hairy faces.”

“Do you suppose we could give him back?” Anaya interrupted with a bored expression.

“I think so,” offered Kith-Kanan. “The ship may not have sailed yet.”

Mackeli looked at the two of them open-mouthed. “Give me back!” he said, horrified. Slowly the boy smiled. “You’re teasing me!”

“I’m not,” said Anaya, wincing as she applied the chewed leaves and root paste to her wound. Mackeli’s face fell until Kith-Kanan winked at him.

“Come with me to the spring,” the prince said. It was better to leave Anaya alone. Her wound had made her testy.

Kith-Kanan led Arcuballis through the woods by its reins. Mackeli walked beside him.

“There is one thing I’m not clear about,” Kith-Kanan said after a time. “Was it Voltorno who cast the spell on me that first night, the night he stole Arcuballis from me?”

“It must have been,” Mackeli guessed. “His men were starved for meat, so Voltorno worked up a spell to enthrall any warmblooded creatures in the area. The deer, rabbits, boar, and other animals had long since fled, warned of the humans by the corvae. All he got for his trouble was your griffon, which he knew was rare and valuable.”

As Arcuballis drank its fill, the elf prince and the Kagonesti boy sat on a bluestone boulder and listened to the water cascading from the pool.

“I’m glad you and Ny are getting along,” Mackeli noted. “She is not easy to live with.”

“That I know.”

The Kagonesti tossed a twig into the water and watched as it was drawn down the miniature falls.

“Mackeli, what do you remember about your parents? Your mother and father – what were they like?”

Mackeli’s forehead wrinkled with deep thought. “I don’t know. I must have been a baby when they left.”

“Left? Do you mean died?”

“No. Ny always said our parents left us and meant to come back some day,” he said.

She and Mackeli looked so completely different, it was hard for Kith-Kanan to believe they were blood relatives.

“You know, Kith, I watched you fight with Voltorno. It was really something! The way you moved, swish, clang, swish!” Mackeli waved his hand in the air, holding an imaginary sword. “I wish I could fight like that.”

“I could teach you,” said Kith-Kanan. “If Anaya doesn’t mind.”

Mackeli wrinkled his nose, as if he smelled something bad. “I know what she’ll say: ‘Get out of this tree! You stink like metal!’ “

“Maybe she wouldn’t notice.” The boy and the prince looked at each other and then shook their heads in unison. “She’d notice,” Kith-Kanan said. “We’ll just have to ask her.”

They walked back to the clearing. Anaya had limped, no doubt painfully, out of the tree into the one sunny spot in the clearing. An ugly smear of greenish paste covered her wound.

“Ny, uh, Kith has something to ask you,” Mackeli said quickly.

She opened her eyes. “What is it?”

Kith-Kanan tied Arcuballis to a tree in the shaded end of the clearing. He came to where Anaya was reclining and squatted down beside her.

“Mackeli wants to learn the use of arms, and I’m willing to teach him. Is that agreeable to you?”

“You wish to take up metal?” she said sharply to the boy. Mackeli nodded as his sister sat up, moving stiffly. “A long time ago, I made a bargain with the spirits of the forest. In return for their allowing me to hear and speak with the animals and trees, I was to be their guardian against outsiders, and those who would despoil the forest are my enemies. And the forest told me that the worst of these intruders carried metal, which is soulless and dead, torn from the deep underground, burned in fire, and used only to kill and destroy. In time the very smell of metal came to offend my nose.”

“You find it acceptable for me to carry a sword and dagger,” noted Kith-Kanan.

“The Forestmaster chose you for a task, and I cannot fault her judgment. You drove the intruders out, saving my brother and the forest.” She looked at Mackeli. “The choice is yours, but if you take up metal, the beasts will no longer speak to you. I may even have to send you away.”

Mackeli’s face showed shock. “Send me away?” he whispered. He looked around. The hollow oak, the shaded clearing, and Anaya were all he had ever known of home and family. “Is there no other way?”

“No,” Anaya said flatly, and tears sprang up in Mackeli’s eyes.

Kith-Kanan couldn’t understand the elf woman’s hardness. “Don’t despair, Mackeli,” he said consolingly. “I can teach swordsmanship using wooden staves in place of iron blades.” He looked at Anaya and added a bit sarcastically, “Is that allowed?”

She waved one hand dismissively. Kith-Kanan put a hand on Mackeli’s shoulder. “What do you say, do you still want to learn?” he asked. Mackeli blotted his eyes on his sleeve and sniffed, “Yes.”

*

As summer lay down like a tired hound and autumn rose up to take its place, Kith-Kanan and Mackeli sparred with wooden swords in the clearing. It was not harmless fun, and many bruises and black eyes resulted from unguarded blows landed on unprotected flesh. But there was no anger in it, and the boy and the prince developed more than fighting skill on those sunny afternoons. They developed a friendship. Bereft of home and family, with no real plans for the future, Kith-Kanan was glad to have something to fill his days.

Early on, Anaya watched them dance and dodge, shouting and laughing as the wooden “blades” hit home. Her side healed quickly, more quickly than Kith-Kanan thought natural, and before long Anaya retreated to the woods. She came and went according to her own whims, often returning with a dressed out hart or a snare line of rabbits. Kith-Kanan believed she had finally come to accept his presence in her home, but she did not join in the easy camaraderie that grew between him and her brother.

One day, as the first leaves were changing from green to gold, Kith-Kanan went down to the spring. Mackeli was off collecting from a rich harvest of fall nuts, and Anaya had been gone for several days. He patted Arcuballis’s flank in passing, then plunged into the cool shade along the path to the pool.

His newly sharpened senses caught the sound of splashing in the water halfway down the path. Curious, he slipped into the underbrush. Kith-Kanan crept along soundlessly – for his walking and breathing were much improved, also – until he came to the high ground overlooking the pool.

Treading water in the center of the pool was a dark-haired elf woman. Her raven-black tresses floated on the surface around her like a cloud of dense smoke. It took Kith-Kanan a moment to realize he was looking at Anaya. Her hair was free of its long braid, and all her skin paint was washed off; he nearly didn’t recognize her clean-scrubbed features. Smiling, he sat down by the trunk of a lichen-encrusted oak to watch her swim.

For all her stealth on land, Anaya was not a graceful swimmer. She paddled back and forth, using a primitive stroke. The fishers of the Thon-Thalas could teach her a thing or two, Kith-Kanan decided.

When she climbed out of the water onto a ledge of granite, Kith-Kanan saw that she was naked. Accustomed though he was to the highly prized pallor of city-dwellers, he found her sun-browned body oddly beautiful. It was lithe and firmly muscled. Her legs were strong, and there was an unconscious, easy grace in her movements. She was like a forest spirit, wild and free. And as Anaya ran her hands through her hair and hummed to herself, Kith-Kanan felt the stirrings of emotions he had thought dead months ago, when he’d fled Silvanost.

Anaya lay down on the rock ledge, pillowing her head with one arm. Eyes closed, she appeared to sleep. Kith-Kanan stood up and meant to slip around the far side of the pool in order to surprise her. But the hill was steep, and the vines were green enough to be slippery when his sandals crushed them. That Kith-Kanan was watching Anaya, not his footing, made the going even more treacherous. He took two steps and fell, sliding feet first down the hill into the pool.

He surfaced, choking and spitting. Anaya hadn’t moved, but she said, “You go to a lot of trouble just to see me bathe.”

“I —” the prince sneezed violently “— heard someone in the spring and came to investigate. I didn’t know it was you.” Despite the weight of his clothes and sword, he swam in long strokes to the ledge where she lay. Anaya made no move to cover herself, but merely moved over to give him room to sit on the rock.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Only my pride hurts.” He stood up, averting his eyes from her. “I’m sorry I intruded, I’ll go.”

“Go or stay. It doesn’t matter to me.” When he hesitated, Anaya added, “I am not modest in the fashion of your city females.”

“Yet you wear clothes,” he felt obliged to say. Uncomfortable as he was with her nudity, he felt strangely unwilling to leave her.

“A deerskin tunic is good protection from thorns.” Anaya watched Kith-Kartan with some amusement as his gaze flickered over her and away for a third time. “It bothers you. Give me your tunic.” He protested, but she insisted, so he removed his wet tunic.

She pulled it over her head. The tunic covered her to her knees. “Is that better?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I can’t get over how different you look,” he said. “Without lines painted on your face, I mean.” It was true. Her hazel eyes were large and darker than his twin’s. She had a small, full-lipped mouth and a high forehead.

As if in response, Anaya stretched lazily, like a big cat. She put more into, and seemed to get more out of, a simple stretch than anyone Kith-Kanan had ever seen. “Don’t the women of your race adorn themselves?” she inquired.

“Well, yes, but not to the point of disguising themselves,” he said earnestly. “I like your face. Seems a pity to cover it.”

Anaya sat up and looked at him curiously. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true,” he said simply.

She shook herself. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I hope you’re not angry with me any more for teaching Mackeli how to fight,” he said, hoping to draw the conversation out a little longer. He was enjoying talking with her.

She shrugged. “My injury made me short-tempered. I wasn’t angry with you.” She gazed out at the clear water. After a moment, she said slowly, “I am glad Mackeli has a friend.”

He smiled and reached a hand out to touch her arm. “You have a friend, too, you know.”

Quickly Anaya rolled to her feet and pulled his tunic off. Dropping it, she dove into the pool. She stayed under so long that Kith-Kanan began to worry. He was about to dive in after her when Mackeli appeared on the other side of the pool, his bag bursting with chestnuts.

“Hello, Kith! Why are you all wet?”

“Anaya went in the water and hasn’t come back up!”

Mackeli heaved the heavy sack to the ground. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s gone to her cave.” Kith-Kanan looked at him blankly. “There’s a tunnel in the pool that connects to a cave. She goes down there when she’s upset about something. Did you two have words?”

“Not exactly,” Kith-Kanan said, staring at the water’s surface. “I just told her I liked her face and that I was her friend.”

Mackeli scratched his cheek skeptically. “Well, there’s no use waiting there. She may not come up for days!” He hoisted the sack onto his narrow shoulder and added, “The cave is Ny’s secret place. We can’t get in.”

Kith-Kanan picked up his tunic and circled around the pool to where Mackeli stood. They walked up the path to the clearing. Every third step or so, Kith-Kanan looked back at the quiet spring. The forest woman was so difficult to understand. He kept hoping she would reappear, but she didn’t.

*

The sun set, and Mackeli and Kith-Kanan roasted chestnuts in the fire. When they were full, they lay on their backs in the grass and watched a fall of stars in the sky. The stars trailed fiery red tails across the black night, and Kith-Kanan marveled at the beauty of the sight. Living indoors in Silvanost, Kith-Kanan had seen only a few such falls. As the elf prince stared into the sky, a gentle wind tickled the branches of the trees and ruffled his hair.

Kith-Kanan sat up to get another handful of chestnuts. He saw Anaya sitting crosslegged by the fire and almost jumped out of his skin.

“What are you playing at?” he asked, irritated at being so startled.

“I came to share your fire.”

Mackeli sat up and poked a few roasted nuts from the ashes with a stick. Though they were hot, Anaya casually picked one up and peeled the red husk from the nut meat.

“Your task is long done, Kith,” she said in a low voice. “Why haven’t you returned to Silvanost?”

He chewed a chestnut. “I have no life there,” he said truthfully.

Anaya’s dark eyes looked out from her newly painted face. “Why not? Any disgrace you committed can be forgiven,” she said.

“I committed no disgrace!” he said with heat.

“Then go home. You do not belong here.” Anaya rose and backed away from the fire. Her eyes glowed in the firelight until she turned away.

Mackeli gaped. “Ny has never acted so strangely. Something is troubling her,” he said as he jumped to his feet. “I’ll ask —”

“No.” The single word froze Mackeli in his tracks. “Leave her alone. When she finds the answer, she’ll tell us.”

Mackeli sat down again. They looked into the red coals in silence for a while, then Mackeli said, “Why do you stay, Kith?”

“Not you, too!”

“Your life in the City of Towers was full of wonderful things. Why did you leave? Why do you stay here?”

“There’s nowhere else I want to go right now, and I’ve made friends here, or at least one friend.” He smiled at Mackeli. “As for why I left —” Kith-Kanan rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. “Once I was in love with a beautiful maiden, in Silvanost. She had wit and spirit, and I believed she loved me. Then it came time for my brother, Sithas, to marry. His wife was chosen for him by our father, the Speaker of the Stars. Of all the suitable maidens in the city, my father chose the one I loved to be my brother’s bride.” He pulled his dagger and drove it to the hilt in the dirt. “And she married him willingly! She was glad to do it!”

“I don’t understand,” admitted Mackeli.

“Neither do I. Hermathya —” Kith-Kanan closed his eyes, seeing her in his mind and savoring the feel of her name on his lips “— seemed to love the idea of being the next speaker’s wife more than being married to one who loved her. So, I left home. I do not expect to see Silvanost again.”

The elf boy looked at Kith-Kanan, whose head hung down. The prince still gripped his dagger hilt tightly. Mackeli cleared his throat and said sincerely, “I hope you stay, Kith. Ny could never have taught me the things you have. She never told me the kind of stories you tell. She’s never seen the great cities, or the warriors and nobles and priests.”

Kith-Kanan had raised his head. “I try not to think beyond today, Keli. For now, the peace of this place suits me. Strange, after being used to all the comforts and extravagances of royal birth...” His voice trailed off.

“Perhaps we can make a new kingdom, here in the wildwood.”

Kith-Kanan smiled. “A kingdom?” he asked. “Just us three?”

With complete earnestness, Mackeli said, “Nations must begin somewhere, yes?”

Chapter 13

DAY OF MADNESS

Sithas rode up the Street of Commerce at a canter, past the guild hall towers that filled both sides. He reined in his horse clumsily – for he wasn’t used to riding – when he spied the guild elves standing in the street, watching smoke rise from the Market quarter.

“Has the royal guard come this way?” he called at them.

Wringing his hands, a senior master with the crest of the Gemcutters Guild on his breast replied, “Yes, Highness, some time ago. The chaos grows worse, I fear —”

“Have you seen my mother, Lady Nirakina?”

The master gemcutter picked at his long dark hair with slim fingers and shook his head in silent despair. Sithas snorted with frustration and twisted his horse’s head away, toward the rising pillar of smoke. “Go back inside your halls,” he called contemptuously. “Bolt your doors and windows.”

“Will the half-breeds come here?” asked another guild elf tremulously.

“I don’t know, but you’d better be prepared to defend yourselves.” Sithas thumped his horse’s sides with his heels, then mount and rider clattered down the street.

Beyond the guild halls, in the first crossing street of the commoners’ district, he found the way littered with broken barrows, overturned sedan chairs, and abandoned pushcarts. Sithas picked his way through the debris with difficulty, for there were many common folk standing in the street.

Most were mute in disbelief, though some wept at the unaccustomed violence so near their homes. They raised a cheer when they saw Sithas. He halted again and asked if anyone had seen Lady Nirakina.

“No one has come through since the warriors passed this way,” said a trader. “No one at all.”

He thanked them, then ordered them off the street. The elves retreated to their houses. In minutes, the prince was alone.

The poorer people of Silvanost lived in tower houses just as the rich did. However, their homes seldom rose more than four or five stories. Each house had a tiny garden around its base, miniature versions of the great landscape around the Tower of the Stars. Trash and blown rubbish now tainted the lovingly tended gardens. Smoke poisoned the air. Grimly Sithas continued toward the heart of this madness.

Two streets later, the prince saw his first rioters. A human woman and a female Kagonesti were throwing pottery jugs onto the pavement, smashing them. When they ran out of jugs, they went to a derelict potter’s cart and replenished their supply.

“Stop that,” Sithas commanded. The dark elf woman took one look at the speaker’s heir and fled with a shriek. Her human companion, however, hurled a pot at Sithas. It shattered on the street at his horse’s feet, spraying the animal with shards. That done, the impudent human woman dusted her hands and simply walked away.

The horse backed and pranced, so Sithas had his hands full calming the mount. When the horse was once more under control, he rode ahead. The lane ended at a sharp turn to the right.

The sounds of fighting grew louder as Sithas rode on, drawing his sword.

The street ahead was full of struggling people – Silvanesti, Kagonesti, human, kender, and dwarves. A line of royal guards with pikes held flat in both hands were trying to keep the mass of fear-crazed folk back. Sithas rode up to an officer giving orders to the band of warriors, who numbered no more than twenty.

“Captain! Where is your commander?” shouted Sithas, above the roar of voices.

“Highness!” The warrior, himself of Kagonesti blood, saluted crisply. “Lord Kencathedrus is pursuing some of the criminals in the Market.”

Sithas, on horseback, could see far over the seething sea of people. “Are all these rioters?” he asked, incredulous.

“No, sire. Most are merchants and traders, trying to get away from the criminals who set fire to the shops,” the captain replied.

“Why are you holding them back?”

“Lord Kencathedrus’s orders, sire. He didn’t want these foreigners to flood the rest of the city.”

When the prince asked the captain if he’d seen his mother, the warrior shook his helmeted head. Sithas then asked if there was another way around, a way to the river.

“Keep them back!” barked the captain to his straining soldiers. “Push them! Use your pike shafts!” He stepped back, closer to Sithas, and said, “Yes, sire, you can circle this street and take White Rose Lane right to the water.”

Sithas commended the captain and turned his horse around. A spatter of stones and chunks of pottery rained over them. The captain and his troops had little to fear; they were in armor. Neither Sithas nor his horse were, so they cantered quickly away.

White Rose Lane was narrow and lined on both sides by high stone walls. This was the poorest section of Silvanost, where the house-towers were the lowest. With only two or three floors, they resembled squat stone drums, a far cry from the tall, gleaming spires of the high city.

The lane was empty when Sithas entered it. Astride his horse, his knees nearly scraped the walls on each side. A thin trickle of scummy water ran down the gutter in the center of the lane. At the other end of the alley, small groups of rioters dashed past. These groups of three or four often had royal guards on their heels. Sithas emerged from White Rose Lane in time to confront four desperate-looking elves. They stared at him. Each was armed with a stone or stick.

Sithas pointed with his sword. “Put down those things. Go back to your homes!” he said sternly.

“We are free elves! We won’t be ordered about! We’ve been driven from our homes once, and we’ll not let it happen again!” cried one of the elves.

“You are mistaken,” Sithas said, turning his horse so none of them could get behind him. “No one is driving you from here. The Speaker of the Stars has plans for a permanent town on the west bank of the Thon-Thalas.”

“That’s not what the holy lady said,” shouted a different elf.

“What holy lady?”

“The priestess of Quenesti Pah. She told us the truth!”

So, the riot could be laid at Miritelisina’s door. Sithas burned with anger. He whipped his sword over his head. “Go home!” he shouted. “Go home, lest the warriors strike you down!”

Someone flung a stone at Sithas. He batted it away, the rock clanging off the tempered iron blade. One smoke-stained elf tried to grab the horse’s bridle, but the prince hit him on the head with the flat of his blade. The elf collapsed, and the others hastily withdrew to find a more poorly armed target.

Sithas rode on through the mayhem, getting hit more than once by thrown sticks and shards. A bearded fellow he took for human swung a woodcutter’s axe at him, so Sithas used the edge, not the flat, of his sword. The axe-wielder fell dead, cleaved from shoulder to heart. Only then did the prince notice the fellow’s tapering ears and Silvanesti coloring. A half-human, the first he’d ever seen. Pity mixed with revulsion welled up inside the speaker’s heart.

Feeling a bit dazed, Sithas rode to the water’s edge. There were dead bodies floating in the normally calm river, a sight that only added to his disorientation. However, his dazed shock vanished instantly when he saw the body of an elf woman clad in a golden gown. His mother had a gown like that.

Sithas half-fell, half-jumped from horseback into the shallow water. He splashed, sword in hand, to the gowned body. It was Nirakina. His mother was dead! Tears spilling down his cheeks, the prince pulled the floating corpse to shallower water. When he turned the body over he saw to his immense relief that it was not his mother. This elf woman was a stranger to Sithas.

He released his hold on the body, and it was nudged gently away by the Thon-Thalas. Sithas stood coughing in the smoke, looking at the nightmare scene around him. Had the gods forsaken the Silvanesti this day?

“Sithas.... Sithas....”

The prince whirled as he realized that someone was calling his name. He ran up the riverbank toward the sound. Once ashore, he was engulfed by the row of short towers that lined the riverbank. The tallest of these, a four-story house with conical roof and tall windows, was to his right. A white cloth waved from a top floor window.

“Sithas?” With relief the prince noted that it was his mother’s voice.

He mounted the horse and urged it into a gallop. Shouts and a loud crashing sound filled the air. On the other side of a low stone wall, a band of rioters was battering at the door of the four-story tower. Sithas raced the horse straight at the wall, and the animal jumped the barrier. As they landed on the other side, Sithas shouted a challenge and waved his sword in the air. Horse and rider thundered into the rioters’ midst. The men dropped the bench they had been using as a battering ram and ran off.

Overhead, a window on the street side opened. Nirakina called down, “Sithas! Praise the gods you came!”

The door of the house, which was almost knocked to pieces, opened inward. A familiar-looking elf emerged warily, the broken end of a table leg clutched in his hand.

“I know you,” said Sithas, dismounting quickly.

The elf lowered his weapon. “Tamanier Ambrodel, at your service, Highness,” he said quietly. “Lady Nirakina is safe.”

Nirakina came down the building’s steps, and Sithas rushed to embrace her.

“We were besieged,” Nirakina explained. Her honey-brown hair was in complete disarray, and her gentle face was smeared with soot. “Tamanier saved my life. He fought them off and guarded the door.”

“I thought you were dead,” Sithas said, cupping his mother’s face in his scratched, dirty hands. “I found a woman floating in the river. She was wearing your clothes.”

Nirakina explained that she had been giving some old clothing to the refugees when the trouble started. In fact she and Tamanier had been at the focus of the riot. One reason they had escaped unharmed was that many of the refugees knew the speaker’s wife and protected her.

“How did it start?” demanded Sithas. “I heard something about Miritelisina.”

“I’m afraid it was her,” Tamanier answered. “I saw her standing in the back of a cart, proclaiming that the speaker and high priests were planning to send all the settlers back across the river. The people grew frightened – they thought they were being driven from their last shelter by their own lords, sent to die in the wilderness. So they rose up, with the intention of forestalling a new exile.”

Fists clenched, Sithas declared, “This is treason! Miritelisina must be brought to justice!”

“She did not tell them to riot,” his mother said gently. “She cares about the poor, and it is they who have suffered most from this.”

Sithas was in no mood to debate. Instead, he turned to Tamanier and held out his hand. Eyes wide, the elf grasped his prince’s hand. “You shall be rewarded,” said Sithas gratefully.

“Thank you, Highness.” Tamanier looked up and down the street. “Perhaps we can take Lady Nirakina home now.”

It was much quieter. Kencathedrus’s warriors had herded the rioters into an ever-tightening circle. When the mob was finally subdued, the fire brigade was able to rush into the Market quarter. That occurred far too late, though; fully half of the marketplace had already been reduced to ruin.

*

The justice meted out by Sithel to his rebellious subjects was swift and severe. The rioters were tried as one and condemned.

Those of Silvanesti or Kagonesti blood were made slaves and set to rebuilding what they had destroyed. The humans and other non-elven rioters were driven from the city at pike point and forbidden ever to return, upon pain of death. All merchants who participated in the madness had their goods confiscated. They, too, were banished for life.

Miritelisina was brought before the speaker. Sithas, Nirakina, Tamanier Ambrodel, and all the high clerics of Silvanost were present. She made no speeches, offered no defense. Despite his respect for her, the speaker found the priestess guilty of petty treason. He could have made the charge high treason, for which the penalty was death, but Sithel could not bring himself to be that harsh.

The high priestess of Quenesti Pah was sent to the dungeon cells under the Palace of Quinari. Her cell was large and clean, but dark. Layers of inhibiting spells were placed around it, to prevent her from using her magical knowledge to escape or communicate with the outside world. Though many saw this as just, few found the sentencing a positive thing; not since the terrible, anarchical days of Silvanos and Balif had such a high-ranking person been sent to the dungeon.

“Is it right, do you think, to keep her there?” Nirakina asked her husband and son later, in private.

“You surprise me,” said Sithel in a tired voice. “You, of all people, whose life was in the balance, should have no qualm about her sentence.”

Nirakina’s face was sad. “I am sure she meant no harm. Her only concern was for the welfare of the refugees.”

“Perhaps she did not mean to start a riot,” Sithas said sympathetically, “but I’m not certain she meant no harm. Miritelisina sought to undermine the decree of the speaker by appealing to the common people. That, in itself, is treason.”

“Those poor people,” Nirakina murmured.

The speaker’s wife retired to her bed. Sithel and his son remained in the sitting room.

“Your mother has a kind heart, Sith. All this suffering has undone her. She needs her rest.” Sithas nodded glumly, and the speaker went on. “I am sending a troop of fifty warriors under Captain Coryamis to the west. They are to try to capture some of the brigands who’ve been terrorizing our settlers and to bring them back alive. Perhaps then we can find out who’s truly behind these attacks.” Sithel yawned and stretched. “Coryamis leaves tonight. Within a month, we should know something.”

Father and son parted. Sithel watched the prince descend the far stairs, not the route to the quarters that he shared with Hermathya. “Where are you going, Sith?” he asked in confusion.

Sithas looked distinctly uncomfortable. “My old rooms, Father. Hermathya and I are – we are not sharing a bed these days,” he said stiffly. Sithel raised one pale brow in surprise.

“You’ll not win her over by sleeping apart,” he advised.

“I need time to contemplate,” Sithas replied. With a gruff good-night, he went on his way. Sithel waited until his son’s footsteps had faded from the stone stairwell, then he sighed. Sithas and Hermathya estranged – for some reason that fact bothered him more than having to send Miritelisina to the dungeon. He knew his son, and he knew his daughter-in-law, too. They were both too proud, too unbending. Any rift between them was only likely to widen over time. Not good. The line of Silvanos required stability and offspring to ensure its continuation. He would have to do something.

A prodigious yawn racked the speaker’s body. For now, though, there was his own bed, his own wife, and sleep.

*

In the weeks following the rioting in the Market, a regular patrol of royal guards walked the streets. A squad of four warriors, moving through the city very late one night, spied a body lying on the steps of the Temple of Quenesti Pah. Two elves ran over and turned the body face-up. To their astonishment, they knew the dead elf well. He was Nortifinthas, and he was of their own company, sent with forty-nine other warriors to the western provinces. No word had been heard from the fifty warriors in over two weeks.

The night watch picked up their fallen comrade and hastened to the Palace of Quinari. Other patrols saw them and joined with them as they went. By the time the group reached the main door of the palace, it was over thirty strong.

Stankathan, the major-domo, arrived at the palace door in response to the vigorous pounding of the guards. He stood in the open doorway, holding aloft a sputtering oil lamp.

“Who goes there?” Stankathan said in a voice husky with sleep. The officer who had found Nortifinthas explained the situation. Stankathan looked at the corpse, borne on the shoulders of his fellow warriors. His face paled.

“I will fetch Prince Sithas,” he decided.

Stankathan went to Sithas’s bachelor quarters. The door was open, and he saw the prince asleep at a table. The elder elf shook his head. Everyone knew that Prince Sithas and his wife were living apart, but still it saddened the old servant.

“Your Highness?” he said, touching Sithas lightly on the back. “Your Highness, wake up; there’s been an... event.”

Sithas raised his head suddenly. “What? What is it?”

“The night watch has found a dead warrior in the streets. Apparently he is one of the soldiers the speaker sent out weeks ago.”

Sithas pushed back his chair and stood, disoriented by his sudden awakening. “How can that be?” he asked. He breathed deeply a few times to clear his head. Then, adjusting his sleep-twisted robe, the prince said, “I will see the warriors.”

The major-domo led Sithas to the main door. There the prince heard the story of the finding of the body from the night watch officer.

“Show me,” ordered Sithas.

The warriors laid the body gently down on the steps. Nortifinthas had numerous knife and club wounds, which had sufficed to drain his life away.

Sithas looked over the array of grim, concerned faces. “Take the body to the cellar and lay it out. Tomorrow perhaps the learned clerics can discover what happened,” he said in a subdued voice.

Four guards hoisted Nortifinthas on their shoulders and went up the steps. Stankathan showed them the way to the palace cellar. After a time, when Stankathan returned with the bearers, Sithas dismissed the guards. To the major-domo he said, “When the speaker rises tomorrow, tell him at once what has occurred. And send for me.”

“It shall be done, Highness.”

*

The day dawned cool, and gray clouds piled up in the northern sky. Sithas and Sithel stood on opposite sides of the table where the body of Nortifinthas had been laid out. Everyone else had been banished from the cellar.

Sithel bent over and began to examine the dead elf’s clothes with minute care. He fingered every seam, looked in every pocket, even felt in the corpse’s hair. Finally Sithas could contain himself no longer.

“What are you doing, Father?”

“I know Captain Coryamis would not have sent this warrior back to us without some kind of message.”

“How do you know he was sent? He could be a deserter.”

Sithel stood up. “Not this fellow. He was a fine warrior. And if he had deserted, he wouldn’t come back to Silvanost.” Just then, Sithel froze. He reached for the shielded candle that was their only source of light, then held it close to the dead elf’s waist.

“There!” The speaker hastily thrust the candle holder into Sithas’s hand. Eagerly, Sithel unclasped the sword belt from the corpse. He held it up to Sithas. “Do you see?”

Sithas squinted hard at the inside of the belt. Sure enough, there were letters scratched in the dark leather, but they appeared random and meaningless. “I don’t understand,” he protested. “I see writing, but it’s just gibberish.”

Sithel removed the empty scabbard from the belt and gently laid it on the corpse’s chest. Then he coiled the belt and tucked it inside his robe. “There are many things you have yet to learn, things that only come from experience. Come with me, and I’ll show you how the dead can speak to the living without magic.”

They left the cellar. An entire corps of courtiers and servants stood waiting for the two most important people in Silvanost to reappear. Sithel promptly ordered everyone to return to their tasks, and he and his son went alone to the Tower of the Stars.

“This palace is like an anthill,” Sithel said, striding briskly across the Processional Road. “How can anything remain secret for very long?”

The prince was puzzled, but he covered his bewilderment with the meditative mask he had learned from the priests of Matheri. It was not until they were alone, locked inside the audience hall of the tower, that his father spoke again.

“Coryamis sent the soldier back as a courier,” confided Sithel. “Let us see what he brought us.”

The emerald throne of the speaker was not simply made of that stone. The natural faceted gems were interspersed with hand-turned columns of rare and beautiful wood. These were of varying lengths and thicknesses, and some were even inlaid with gold and silver. Sithas looked on in mute wonder as his father detached piece after piece of wood from the ancient, sacred throne. Each time he removed a cylinder of wood, he would wind the dead soldier’s belt around it, spiral fashion. The speaker would then stare at the writing on the belt for a second, remove the belt, and re-fit the wooden piece back into the throne. On the fifth attempt, Sithel gave a cry of triumph. He read up the length of the cylinder, turned it slightly, and read the next row of letters. When he was done, the Speaker of the Stars looked up, ashen faced.

“What is it, Father?” Sithas asked. The speaker handed him the rod and belt as a reply.

Now the prince understood. The message had been written on the belt while it was wound around a shaft of identical thickness to this one. When the belt was removed, the letters became a meaningless jumble. Now Sithas could read the last message sent by Coryamis.

There were many abbreviations in the writing. Sithas read the message out loud, just to be certain he had it right. “‘Great speaker,’ “it said, “‘I write this knowing I may not be alive tomorrow, and this is the only chance I have to tell what has happened. Two days ago we were attacked by a body of humans, elves, and mixed-bloods. The horsemen trapped us between the foothills of the Khalkist Mountains and the falls of the Keraty River. There are only fifteen of us left. I will send this message with my best fighter, Nortifinthas. Great speaker, these men and elves are not bandits, they are formidable cavalry. They also knew where to ambush us and how many we were, so I feel, too, that we were betrayed. There is a traitor in Silvanost. Find him or all shall perish. Long live Silvanesti!’ “

Sithas stared at his father in horrified silence for a long moment. Finally, he burst out, “This is monstrous!”

“Treachery in my own city. Who could it be?” Sithel asked.

“I don’t know, but we can find out. The greater question is, who pays the traitor? It must be the emperor of Ergoth!” declared his son.

“Yes.” Surely there was no one else with the money or reason to wage such an underhanded campaign against the elven nation. Sithel looked at the prince, who suddenly seemed much older than before. “I do not want war, Sithas. I do not want it. We have not yet received a reply from the emperor or from the king of Thorbardin regarding our request for a conference. If both nations agree to come and talk, it will give us a chance for peace.”

“It may give the enemy the time they need, too,” said Sithas.

The speaker took the belt and wooden cylinder from his son. He restored the cylinder to its place in the side of the throne. The belt he fastened around his own waist. Sithel had regained his calm, and the years fell away once more when resolve filled his face.

“Son, I charge you with the task of finding the traitor. Male or female, young or old, there can be no mercy.”

“I shall find the traitor,” Sithas vowed.

*

Dinner each night in the Quinari Palace was held in the Hall of Balif. It was as much a social occasion as a meal, for all the courtiers were required to attend and certain numbers of the priestly and noble classes, too. Speaker Sithel and Lady Nirakina sat in the center of the short locus of the vast oval table. Sithas and Hermathya sat on Nirakina’s left, and all the guests sat to the left of them in order of seniority. Thus, the person to Sithel’s right was always the most junior member of the court. That seat fell to Tamanier Ambrodel nowadays; for saving Lady Nirakina’s life during the riot, he’d been granted a minor title.

The hall was full, though everyone was still standing when Tamanier and Hermathya arrived together. Sithel had not yet come, and no one could sit until the speaker did so himself. For his part, Sithas stood behind his chair, impassive. Hermathya hoped he might react jealously upon seeing her on the arm of the stalwart Tamanier, but the prince kept his pensive gaze focused on the golden plate set before him.

Sithel entered with his wife. Servants pulled the tall chairs for the speaker and Nirakina, and Sithel took his place. “May the gods grant you all health and long life,” he said quietly. The vast hall had been constructed so that conversation at one end could be heard by parties at the other. The traditional greeting before meals carried easily to the entire oval table.

“Long life to you, Speaker of the Stars,” the diners responded in unison. Sithel sat. With much shuffling and squeaking of chairs, the guests sat down, too.

A troop of servers appeared, bearing a large pot. The pot swung on a long pole supported on the shoulders of two elves. Behind these servants, two more servers carried a slotted bronze box, from which a dull glow radiated. The box was full of large hearthstones that had been banked against the kitchen fires all day. Two servants set the bronze box on a stone slab, and the pot carriers eased the great cauldron onto the box. Now the soup would stay hot all through dinner – which could last several hours.

Young elf maidens clad in shifts of opaque yellow gauze slipped in and out among the seated guests, filling their bowls with steaming turtle soup. For those not inclined to soup, there was fresh fruit, picked that morning in the vast orchards on the eastern shore. Elf boys staggered under the weight of tall amphorae, brimming with purple-red nectar. The goblets of the guests were kept full.

With the first course served, Stankathan signaled to the servants at the doors of the hall. They swung them open, and a trio of musicians entered. The players of flute, lyre, and sistrum, arranged themselves in the far comer of the hall as conversation in the room began in earnest.

“I have heard,” opened old Rengaldus, guildmaster of the gemcutters, “that there is to be a conclave with representatives of Ergoth.”

“That’s old news,” said Zertinfinas, the priest. He hacked open a juicy melon and poured the seedy center pulp onto his plate. “The dwarves of Thorbardin are invited, too.”

“I have never seen a human close up,” remarked Hermathya. “Or talked to one.”

“You haven’t missed much, Lady,” Rengaldus replied. “Their language is uncouth and their bodies thick with hair.”

“Quite bestial,” agreed Zertinfinas.

“Those are your opinions,” Tamanier interjected. Many eyes turned to him. It was unusual for the junior noble to speak at all. “I knew humans out on the plains, and many of them were good people.”

“Yes, but aren’t they inherently treacherous?” asked the guildmaster of the sandalmakers. “Do humans ever keep their word?”

“Frequently.” Tamanier looked to his patron, Sithas, for signs of displeasure. The speaker’s son, as usual, ate sparingly, picking grapes one at a time from the cluster on his plate. He did not seem to have heard Tamanier’s comments, so the favored young courtier continued. “Humans can be fiercely honorable, perhaps because they know so many of their fellows are not.”

“They are unredeemably childish in their tempers,” Zertinfinas asserted. “How can they not be?

With only seventy or so years of life how can they accumulate any store of wisdom or patience?”

“But they are clever,” noted Rengaldus. He slurped a mouthful of nectar and wiped his chin with a satin napkin. “A hundred years ago there wasn’t a human alive who could cut a diamond or polish a sapphire. Now craftsmen in Daltigoth have learned to work gems, and they have undercut our market! My factors in Balifor say that human-cut gems are selling well there, mainly because they are far cheaper than ours. The buyers care less about quality than they do about the final price.”

“Barbarians,” muttered Zertinfinas into his cap.

The second course was brought out: a cold salad of river trout with a sweet herb dressing. Murmurs of approval circled the great table. Loaves of pyramid-shaped bread were also provided, smeared with honey, a confection greatly loved by elves.

“Perhaps one of the learned clerics can tell me,” Hermathya said, cutting herself a chunk of warm bread, “why humans have such short lives?” Zertinfinas cleared his throat to speak, but from the opposite side of the table, a new voice answered the lady’s question.

“It is generally considered that humans represent a middle race, farther removed from the gods and closer to the realm of the animals. Our own race – the first created, longer lived, and possessing a greater affinity for the powers of magic – is closest to the gods.”

Hermathya tilted her head to get a better look at the soft spoken cleric. “I do not know you, holy one. Who are you?”

“Forgive me, Lady, for not introducing myself. I am Kamin Oluvai, second priest of the Blue Phoenix.” The young elf stood and bowed to Hermathya. He was a striking-looking fellow, in his brilliant blue robe and golden headband, with its inlay of a blue phoenix. His golden hair was long even by elven standards. Sithas studied him circumspectly. This Kamin Oluvai had not been to many royal dinners.

“What about these humans?” complained Zertinfinas loudly, beginning to feel his nectar. “What is to be done about them?”

“I believe that is a matter best left to the speaker,” Sithas replied. One hundred and fifty pairs of eyes looked to Sithel, who was listening with great care while eating his fish.

“The sovereignty of Silvanesti will be preserved,” the speaker said calmly. “That is why the conclave has been called.”

The prince nodded, then asked, “Is it true, Ambrodel, that there are more humans living in our western provinces than Silvanesti and Kagonesti?”

“More than the Silvanesti, Highness. But the true number of the Kagonesti is difficult to state. So many of them live in the remote parts of the forest, mountains, and plains.”

“Humans breed at any point past age fifteen,” blurted Zertinfinas. “They regularly have five and six children in a family!” Whispers of surprise and concern circled the table. Elven parents seldom had more than two children in their entire, lengthy lifetimes.

“Is that true?” Nirakina queried Tamanier.

“At least in the wild country it is. I cannot say what families are like in the more settled areas of Ergoth. But many of the children do not survive into adulthood. Human knowledge of the healing arts is not nearly so advanced as ours.”

The musicians completed their program of light tunes and began to play “The Sea-Elf’s Lament.” The main course was served.

It came rolling in on a large cart, a huge sculpture of a dragon done in golden-brown pie crust. The “beast” reared up five feet high. His back was scaled with mint leaves, his eyes and talons made red with pomegranates. The head and spiky tail of the dragon were covered with glazed nut meats.

The diners applauded this culinary creation, and Sithel himself smiled. “You see, my friends, how the cook is master of us all,” he proclaimed, rising to his feet. “For centuries the dragons preyed upon us, and now we have them to dinner.”

Stankathan stood by the pastry dragon, a sword in his hand. He jerked his head, and servants positioned a golden tray under the dragon’s chin. With a force that belied his age, the servant lopped off the dragon’s head. A flight of live sparrows burst from the open neck of the creation, each bird having silver streamers tied to its legs. The assembly gave a collective gasp of admiration.

“I trust the rest of the insides are more thoroughly cooked,” quipped Sithel.

The servants bore the head of the dragon to the speaker. With smaller knives, they carved it to pieces. Under the crusty pastry skin, the head was stuffed with delicate meat paste, whole baked apples, and sweet glazed onions.

Stankathan attacked the rest of the pastry like some culinary thespian portraying the mighty Huma slaying a real dragon. The body of the beast was filled with savory sausages, stuffed peppers, whole capons, and vegetable torts. The room filled with noise as every diner commented on the elegance of this evening’s feast.

Zertinfinas, rather loudly, called for more nectar. The serving boy had none left in his amphora, so he ran to the door to fetch more. Sithas called to the servant as he passed, and the elf boy dropped to one knee by the prince’s chair.

“Yes, Highness?”

“The holy one has had too much to drink. Have the cellar master cut the nectar with water. Half for half,” ordered Sithas in a confidential tone.

“As you command, sire.”

“The cook really has outdone himself,” Hermathya remarked. “It is a wonderful feast.”

“Is it a special occasion?” asked Rengaldus.

“The calendar does not list a holiday,” Kamin Oluvai noted. “Unless it is a special day for the speaker.”

“It is, holy one. By this feast we do honor to a dead hero,” Sithel explained.

Nirakina set down her goblet, puzzled. “What hero, my husband?”

“His name was Nortifinthas.”

Head wobbling, Zertinfinas asked, “Was he a companion of Huma Dragonsbane?”

“No,” Kamin Oluvai assisted. “He sat in the first great Synthal-Elish, did he not?”

“You are both mistaken,” Sithel replied. “Nortifinthas was a simple soldier, a Kagonesti who died nobly in service to this house.”

Conversation around the table had died just as the flutist trilled the high solo from the lament.

“This morning,” the speaker continued, “this soldier named

Nortifinthas returned to the city from the western province. He was the only survivor of the fifty warriors I sent out to find the bandits who have troubled our people lately. All his comrades were slain. Even though he was fearfully wounded, the brave Nortifinthas returned with the last dispatch of his commander.” Sithel looked around the table, meeting each guest eye to eye. The prince sat very still, his left hand clenched into a fist in his lap. “One of you here, one of you seated at my table eating my food, is a traitor.”

The musicians heard this declaration and ceased playing. The speaker waved a hand to them to continue, and they did so, awkwardly.

“You see, the force that wiped out my fifty warriors was not a band of hit-and-run bandits, but a disciplined troop of cavalry who knew where and when my soldiers would come. It was not a battle. It was a massacre.”

“Do you know who the traitor is, Speaker?” Hermathya asked with great earnest.

“Not yet, but the person will be found. I spent most of my day compiling a list of those who could have known the route of my warriors. At this point, I suspect everyone.”

The speaker looked around the large table. The gaiety was gone from the dinner, and the diners looked at the delicacies on their plates without enthusiasm.

Sithel picked up his knife and fork. “Finish your food,” he commanded. When no one else emulated him, he held up his hands expressively and said, “Why do you not eat? Do you want this fine meal to go to waste?”

Sithas was the first to take up his fork and resume eating. Hermathya and Nirakina did likewise. Soon, everyone was eating again, but with much less good humor than before.

“I will say this,” Sithel added pointedly, cutting the glazed pomegranate eye from the pastry dragon’s face. “The traitor’s identity is suspected.”

By now the elf boy had returned, his amphora full of diluted nectar. Into the absolute silence that followed his own last statement, the speaker said loudly, “Zertinfinas! Your nectar!”

The cleric, his head snapping up at the sound of his name, had to be pounded on the back several times to save him from choking on a piece of pastry.

Sithas watched his father as he ate. The speaker’s every movement was graceful, his face serene with resolve.

Chapter 14

WHILE THE SPEAKER DINED

The Wildwood slowly regained its lively character. No longer was there that absence of animal life that Kith-Kanan had found so puzzling when he first arrived. Daily, deer came to graze in the clearing. Rabbits and squirrels cavorted in and around the trees. Birds other than the ubiquitous corvae appeared. Bears, boars, and panthers roared in the night. As Mackeli had said, they’d been warned of the humans. Now that the humans were gone, the animals had returned.

On this particular day, Mackeli wedged his tongue between his teeth and concentrated on lashing an arrowhead to a shaft. Kith-Kanan was teaching him the bow now. It was not something to which the boy took readily. As he tied off the end of the whipcord, the flint arrowhead sagged badly out of line.

“That’s not tight enough,” Kith-Kanan cautioned. He handed the boy his dagger. “Start again and make it tight.”

Neither of them had seen Anaya for over a week. It didn’t bother Mackeli a whit, but Kith-Kanan found himself missing the strange forest woman. He wondered if he should go and look for her. Mackeli said, and Kith-Kanan did not doubt, that the prince would never find her unless she wanted to be found.

“What do you do if you need her in a hurry?” Kith-Kanan asked ingeniously. “I mean, suppose you got hurt or something. How would you call her?”

“If I really need Ny, she knows it and comes for me.” Mackeli had almost finished his tying of the arrow.

“You mean, you just will her to come, and-she does?”

The boy knotted the tough silk string. “Mostly.” With a proud smile, he handed Kith-Kanan the newly lashed arrow. Kith shook it to see if the head would loosen. It didn’t. “Good,” he said, handing the arrow back. “You only need twenty more to fill your quiver.”

*

Late the next afternoon the Wildwood rang with laughter and splashing as Kith-Kanan and Mackeli swam in the pool. Mackeli was progressing well under the prince’s tutelage, so they had decided to finish their day with a swim in the crystal waters.

Mackeli was treading water and looking around the pool for Kith-Kanan. The boy was a better swimmer than his sister, but not so skilled as the elf prince.

“Where’d you go, Kith?” he said, eyeing the surface of the water uncertairnly. Suddenly a hand closed on his left ankle and Mackeli gave a yelp. He found himself lifted up and launched skyward. Laughing and yelling all the way, he flew several feet and landed back in the pool with a loud splash. He and Kith-Kanan surfaced at the same time.

“It’s not fair,” Mackeli said, flinging his streaming hair from his eyes. “You’re bigger than me!”

Kith-Kanan grinned. “You’ll catch up someday, Keli,” he said. Twisting gracefully in the water, the prince turned and swam toward the granite ledge on shore.

As Kith-Kanan hoisted himself up on the ledge, Mackeli called to him, “I want to learn to swim like you. You move like a fish!”

“Another result of my misspent youth.” Kith-Kanan stretched out full length on the warm ledge and closed his eyes.

Minutes later, something moved to block the sunlight. Without opening his eyes, Kith-Kanan said, “I know you’re there, Keli. I heard you walk up. You’d better not – Hey!”

With a cry, the prince sat up. A very sharp spear point had been poked into his bare stomach. Squinting in the bright light, he looked up. Several pairs of moccasin-clad feet were gathered around Kith-Kanan, and their owners – four dark figures – loomed over him.

“Mackeli, my sword!” he called, leaping to his feet.

The boy, still in the pool, looked at his friend and laughed. “Calm down, Kith! It’s only White-Lock.”

Kith-Kanan stared. Shading his eyes, he realized that the four dark figures were Kagonesti males. They were brown-skinned, hard-muscled, and wore breechcloths of deerskin. Bows, quivers of arrows, and deerskin bags were slung over their muscled backs. Their exposed skin was covered by red, yellow, and blue loops and whorls of paint.

The tallest of the four – he topped Kith-Kanan by several inches – had a streak of white in his midnight-black hair. He and his comrades were looking at the Silvanesti nobleman with amused curiosity.

Naked and still damp from his swim, Kith-Kanan drew the tattered shreds of his dignity about himself. He pulled on his clothes as Mackeli came out of the pool and greeted the four strange elves.

“Blessings of Astarin upon you, White-Lock, you and yours,” Mackeli said. He placed his hands over his heart and then held them in front of him, palms up.

The Kagonesti called White-Lock repeated the gesture. “And upon you, Mackeli,” he said to the boy, in a deep and solemn voice, though he continued to watch Kith-Kanan. “Do you now bring the Settled Ones to the sacred forests?”

Kith-Kanan knew that the term “Settled Ones” was meant as an insult. The Kagonesti were nomadic and never built permanent habitations. Before he could retort, Mackeli said, “Kith is my friend and my guest, White-Lock. Do the People no longer value courtesy to guests?”

A smile quirked White-Lock’s lips and he said, “Blessings of Astarin upon you, guest of Mackeli.”

“Would you and your hunting party honor me with a visit, White-Lock?” Mackeli asked. He pulled his clothes on.

White-Lock glanced at his companions. Kith-Kanan neither saw nor heard any exchange between them, but the tall Kagonesti said, “My companions and I do not wish to intrude upon the Keeper of the Forest.”

“It is no intrusion,” Mackeli replied politely.

Kith-Kanan was mildly surprised at the change that seemed to have come over the irrepressible boy. He spoke to the Kagonesti in a very composed and adult manner. They, in turn, treated him with great respect. Mackeli went on. “The keeper is away at present. Were she here, I know she would wish to make you welcome. Come, we can share stories. I have had a great adventure since we last met.”

White-Lock looked once more to his three companions. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded and they all set out for the clearing.

As they walked, Kith-Kanan brought up the rear and studied these new acquaintances. In his travels around the western provinces of Silvanesti, he had met several Kagonesti. Those elves, however, had given up their nomadic and isolated ways to trade with the humans and Silvanesti who lived in the West. Many of them no longer painted their bodies, and they wore civilized clothing. These four were obviously not of that ilk.

As they made their way to the clearing, Mackeli introduced Kith-Kanan to the others in the group. There was Sharp-Eye, brown-haired and some inches shorter than White-Lock; Braveheart, who had sandy hair; and Otter. The latter was shorter than the rest, a head shorter than Kith-Kanan, and his pale yellow eyes twinkled with inner mirth. He was the only one who smiled outright at the elf prince. It was a merry smile, and Kith-Kanan returned it.

In the clearing, Mackeli bade them all be seated by the oak. He went inside and returned shortly with nuts, berries, and fruit. White-Lock took only a handful of red berries, though his comrades dug in with gusto.

“So, guest of Mackeli, how do you come to be in the wildwood?” White-Lock asked, staring at the Silvanesti prince.

Kith-Kanan frowned. “I am a traveler, White-Lock. And my name is Kith. You would honor me by using it,” he replied testily.

White-Lock nodded and looked pleased. Kith-Kanan remembered then that the more primitive Kagonesti didn’t believe it was polite to use a person’s name unless they’d been given leave to. He cudgeled his brain, trying to recall what else he knew about their race.

“White-Lock!” called a startled voice behind Kith-Kanan. “What in the name of the forest is this?”

They turned. The one called Otter was standing at the far end of the clearing, staring in awe at Arcuballis. The griffon was lying in the shade of a big tree. The beast opened one golden eye and regarded the amazed Kagonesti.

“That is Arcuballis,” Kith-Kanan said proudly. With an inward smile, he uttered a sharp whistle. Arcuballis got quickly to its feet, and Otter nearly fell over backward as he stumbled away from the tall beast. Kith-Kanan gave another whistle, at first high-pitched, then sliding down the scale. The griffon unfolded its wings to their full extent and uttered a trilling call in imitation of Kith-Kanan’s whistle. Otter jumped back again. At another whistle from the prince, Arcuballis folded its wings and made its way daintily across the clearing, coming to a stop several feet from the group.

Kith-Kanan was pleased to see that even White-Lock looked impressed. The Kagonesti leader told Otter to rejoin the group. “What is this beast, Kith?” White-Lock asked wonderingly.

“Arcuballis is a griffon. He’s my mount and my friend.” Kith-Kanan whistled once more and Arcuballis lay down where it was. In seconds, the beast closed its eyes in sleep again.

“He is beautiful, Kith!” Otter said enthusiastically. “He flies?”

“He does indeed.”

“I should be honored if you would take me for a ride!”

“Otter,” White-Lock said sharply.

Regret replaced the joy on Otter’s face, and he subsided. Kith-Kanan smiled kindly at the yelloweyed elf as the Kagonesti called Sharp-Eye spoke into the silence.

“Mackeli, you said you had a tale to share,” he said. “Tell us of your great adventure.”

All four Kagonesti settled down to listen. Even Otter tore his gaze from Arcuballis and gave his full attention to Mackeli. The Kagonesti were great ones for storytelling, Kith-Kanan knew. They rarely, if ever, wrote anything down. Their history, their news, all was passed orally from one generation to the next. If they liked Mackeli’s story, it would be swapped between tribes until years hence, when it might be heard by every Kagonesti on Krynn.

Mackeli’s green eyes widened. He looked at each of them in turn and began his story. “I was kidnapped by an evil wizard named Voltorno,” he said softly.

Kith-Kanan shook his head bemusedly. Mackeli finally had a fresh audience for his tale. And the boy didn’t let them down. None of the four Kagonesti moved so much as a finger during Mackeli’s long recital of his kidnap, the pursuit by Kith-Kanan and Anaya, and the prince’s duel with Valtorno. The silence was broken only by Otter’s exclamation of triumph when Mackeli told how he and Kith-Kanan had flown away from Voltorno’s men on Arcuballis.

When the story was finished, the Kagonesti looked at Kith-Kanan with new respect. The prince preened slightly, sitting up straighter.

“You fought well against the humans, Kith,” Sharp-Eye concluded. The other Kagonesti nodded. “We are sorry to have missed the Keeper of the Forest, Mackeli,” White-Lock said. “To see the keeper is a great honor and pleasure. She walks with the gods and speaks with great wisdom.”

A snort of laughter was surprised out of Kith-Kanan. “Anaya?” he exclaimed in disbelief. He was immediately sorry. The Kagonesti, including the fun-loving Otter, turned looks of stern reproach upon him.

“You are disrespectful of the keeper, Kith.” White-Lock glowered.

“I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect,” Kith-Kanan said apologetically. “White-Lock, I’m curious. I’ve met Kagonesti elves before but they weren’t like you. They were more – uh —”

“Where did you meet these others?” White-Lock cut in.

“In the West,” replied Kith-Kanan. “The western provinces of Silvanesti.”

“Settled Ones,” Sharp-Eye said with much disgust. Braveheart rubbed his hands together as if washing them, then flung them away from himself.

“Those you met have taken up the ways of the Settled Ones,” said White-Lock, his voice hard. “They have turned their backs on the true ways.”

Kith-Kanan was surprised by the loathing they all expressed. Deciding it did not behoove him to anger Mackeli’s friends, he changed the subject. “Braveheart, how did you come by your name?”

Braveheart gestured to White-Lock. Kith-Kanan wondered if he’d committed another social breach by inquiring about the Kagonesti’s name. White-Lock, though, didn’t seem upset. He answered, “Braveheart was born mute, but his skill as a hunter and fighter earned him his adult name.” Amusement danced in the hunter’s eyes. “Are all your people so curious, Kith?”

Kith-Kanan looked chagrined. “No, White-Lock. My curiosity has gotten me in trouble before.”

They all laughed, and the four Kagonesti hunters stood up. White-Lock brought his hands up to cover his heart and then held them out palms-up, first to Mackeli and then to Kith-Kanan. The boy and the prince returned the gesture.

“The blessings of Astarin upon you both,” White-Lock said warmly. “Give our respects to the keeper.”

“We shall, White-Lock. Blessings upon you all,” Mackeli returned.

“Good-bye” Kith-Kanan called after them. With a last wave from Otter, the hunters disappeared into the forest.

Mackeli gathered up the uneaten food and stowed it back in the tree. Kith-Kanan remained standing, looking after the departed Kagonesti.

“They’re a strange lot,” Kith-Kanan mused aloud. “And they certainly don’t care for their more ‘settled’ brothers. I thought the others I met were a lot less primitive.” He chuckled. “And the way they talked about Anaya-as if she were a goddess!”

“They are good elves,” Mackeli said when he returned. “They only want to live in peace with the forest, as they have for centuries. But most humans treat them like savages.” The green eyes that looked up at Kith-Kanan were hard. “And from what you’ve told me about your people, the Silvanesti do no better.”

*

Several more weeks went by. The episode of the Kagonesti stayed with Kith-Kanan, and he continued to think on Mackeli’s words. However, he was growing more and more worried about Anaya. He questioned Mackeli, but the boy remained unconcerned. Though Kith-Kanan knew she could take care of herself, he still fretted. At night, he began to dream of her deep in the woods, calling to him, saying his name over and over. He would then follow her voice through the black forest, but just when he thought he’d found her, he would wake up. It was frustrating.

After a time Anaya began to monopolize his waking thoughts as well. The prince had told her he was her friend. Was it more than that? What Kith-Kanan felt for the Kagonesti woman was certainly different from what he felt for Mackeli. Could he be in love with her? They had barely gotten to know each other before she’d disappeared. But still the prince worried about her, and dreamed about her, and missed her.

Kith-Kanan and Mackeli were sleeping outside the tree one pleasant night. The prince slept deeply and, for once, dreamlessly – until something unseen tugged at his mind. He opened his eyes and sat bolt-upright, turning his head from side to side. It was as if a sudden clap of thunder had wakened him. Yet Mackeli slept on beside him. Night creatures chirped and whirred softly in the forest, also undisturbed.

Kith-Kanan straightened his tunic – for he slept fully clothed – and lay back down. He was completely awake when the nameless something called to him once more. Drawn by something he couldn’t see, the prince got up and crossed the clearing. The going was not easy, since the silver moon had set and the red moon was almost down. It was an eerie crimson orb just barely visible through the trees.

Kith-Kanan followed the path to the spring. Whatever was pulling him brought him to that place, but when he arrived, there seemed to be no one around. He dipped a hand in the cold water and threw it on his face.

As the Silvanesti prince stared at his reflection in the pool, a second dark image appeared in the water next to it. Kith-Kanan leaped back and turned, his hand on his dagger hilt. It was Anaya, standing a few feet away.

“Anaya!” he uttered with relief. “You’re all right. Where have you been?”

“You called me,” she said evenly. Her eyes seemed to have a light of their own. “Your call was very strong. I couldn’t stay away, no matter how I tried.”

Kith-Kanan shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said truthfully.

She stepped closer and looked up into his eyes. Her unpainted face was beautiful in the red moonlight. “Your heart spoke to mine, Kith, and I could not refuse to come. We were drawn together.”

At that moment, Kith-Kanan thought he did understand. The idea that hearts could speak to each other was something he had heard about. His people were said to be able to perform a mysterious summons known as “the Call.” It was said to work over great distances and was reputed to be irresistible. Yet Kith-Kanan had never known anyone who had actually done it.

He stepped closer and put a hand to her cheek. Anaya was trembling.

“Are you afraid?” he asked quietly.

“I have never felt like this before,” she whispered.

“How do you feel?”

“I want to run!” she declared loudly. But she didn’t move an inch.

“You called to me too, you know. I was asleep in the clearing just now and something woke me, something drew me down here to the spring. I couldn’t resist it.” Her cheek was warm, despite the coolness of the night. He cupped it in his hand. “Anaya, I have been so worried about you. When you didn’t come back, I thought something might have happened to you.”

“Something did,” she replied softly. “All these weeks, I have been meditating and thinking of you. So many feelings were tumbling inside of me.”

“I have been troubled also,” the prince confessed. “I’ve lain awake at night trying to sort out my feelings.” He smiled at her. “You’ve even intruded on my dreams, Anaya.”

Her face twisted in pain. “It isn’t right.”

“Why not? Am I so unappealing?”

“I am born of the forest! For ten times the length of your life I have lived in the Wildwood, on my own and of my own. I did not take Mackeli until a short time ago.”

“Take Mackeli? Then, he is not your brother by blood, is he?”

Anaya looked at Kith-Kanan desperately. “No. I took him from a farmer’s house. I was lonely. I needed someone to talk to....”

The emptiness in her eyes, the pain in her voice, touched Kith-Kanan’s heart. He gripped Anaya’s shoulders with both hands. In return, she put her arms around his waist and embraced him passionately.

After a moment, Anaya pulled back and said softly, “I want to show you something.” She stepped into the pool.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he joined her in the cool spring.

“To my secret place.” She took his hand and warned, “Don’t let go.”

They slid under the water’s surface. It was as cold and as black as Takhisis’s heart in the pool, but Anaya swam down, kicking with her feet. Something hard brushed Kith-Kanan’s shoulder; he put a hand out and felt solid rock. They were in a tunnel. After a moment, Anaya planted her feet on the bottom and thrust upward. Kith-Kanan let himself be pulled along. Suddenly their heads broke the surface.

Treading water, Kith-Kanan looked around in wonder. A soft, white light illuminated a vaulted ceiling that rose some fifteen feet above the pool’s surface. The ceiling was smooth and pure white. All around the edge of the vault were painted the most beautiful murals Kith-Kanan had ever seen. They showed a variety of woodland scenes: misty glens, roaring waterfalls, and deep, dark forests.

“Come,” Anaya said, drawing him along by the hand. He kicked forward until his toes bumped rock. It was not the sloping bottom of a natural pool. Kith-Kanan felt round-nosed steps cut into the rock as he and Anaya climbed out of the water.

The steps and floor of the cave were made of the same stone as the ceiling, a glassy white rock Kith-Kanan couldn’t identify.

The cave itself was divided down the center by a row of graceful columns, deeply fluted and tapering to their tops. They appeared to be joined solidly into the floor and ceiling.

Anaya let go of his hand and let him wander forward on his own. He went to the source of the gentle white light, the third column in from the water’s edge. A subtle glow and warmth emanated from the column.

Hesitantly Kith-Kanan put out a hand to touch the translucent stone.

He turned to the Kagonesti, smiling. “It feels alive!”

“It is,” she beamed.

The walls to the right of the colonnade were decorated with remarkable bas-reliefs, raised carvings that depicted elven women. There were four of them, life-sized, and between each relief was a carving of a different type of tree.

Anaya stood close beside the prince, and he put an arm around her waist. “What do these mean?” he said, gesturing at the reliefs.

“These were the Keepers of the Forest,” she said proudly “Those that came before me. They lived as I live now, guarding the Wildwood from harm.” Anaya went to the image farthest from the pool. “This was Camirene. She was Keeper of the Forest before me.” Anaya moved to the right, to the next figure. “This was Ulyante.” She slipped sideways to the third figure. “Here is Delarin. She died driving a dragon from the wild-wood.” Anaya touched the warm stone relief lightly with her fingertips. Kith-Kanan regarded the carved image with awe.

“And this,” Anaya said, facing the figure nearest the pool, “is Ziatia, first guardian of the wildwood.” She put her hands together and bowed to the image. Kith-Kanan looked from one relief to the next.

“It is a beautiful place,” he said with awe.

“When I am troubled, I come here to rest and think,” Anaya said, gesturing around her.

“Is this where you’ve been these past weeks?” he asked.

“Yes. Here, and in the wildwood. IM watched you sleep many nights.” She looked deep into his eyes.

Kith-Kanan could hardly take it all in. This beautiful cave, the many answers it provided and the mysteries it held. It was like the beautiful elf woman before him. She had provided him with answers this night, but in her deep eyes were even more mysteries and questions unanswered. For now, he gave himself up to the joy he felt, the joy at finding someone who cared for him, someone that he cared for. And he did care for her.

“I think I love you, Anaya,” Kith-Kanan said tenderly, caressing her cheek.

She laid her head on his chest. “I begged the Forestmaster to send you away, but she would not. ‘You must make the decision’ she said.” She clasped Kith-Kanan with frightening strength.

He tilted her face up to his and bent down to kiss her. Anaya was no soft and timid elf maiden. The hard life of the wildwood had made her tough and strong, but as they kissed, Kith-Kanan could feel the tremors echoing through her body.

She broke the kiss. “I will not be a casual love,” she vowed, and her eyes bored into his. “If we are to be together, you must swear to be mine always.”

Kith-Kanan remembered how he had searched for her in his dreams, how frightened and alone he’d felt when he couldn’t find her. “Yes, Anaya. Always. I wish I still had my starjewel, but Voltorno took it with my other belongings. I wish I could give it to you.” She did not understand, and he explained the significance of the starjewel.

She nodded. “We have no jewels to give in the wildwood. We make our most sacred vows in blood.” She took his hand and knelt by the pool, drawing him down beside her. Laying her palm against the sharp edge of the rock, she pressed down hard. When she pulled her hand back, it was bleeding. Kith-Kanan hesitated a moment, then he too cut his hand on the hard, glassy rock. They joined hands once more, pressing the wounds together. The blood of the Silvanesti House Royal flowed together with that of the forest-born Kagonesti.

Anaya plunged their joined hands into the water. “By blood and water, by soil and sky, by leaf and limb, I swear to love and keep you, Kith, for as long as I walk, for as long as I breathe.”

“By Astarin and E’li, I swear to love and keep you, Anaya, for all my life.” Kith-Kanan felt lightheaded, as if a great weight had been taken from him. Perhaps it was the weight of his anger, laid across his shoulders when he’d left Silvanost in a rage.

Anaya drew their hands out of the water, and the cuts were healed. While he marveled at this, she said, “Come.”

Together they moved to the rear of the cave, away from the pool. There, the glassy stone walls ended. In their place was a solid wall of tree roots, great twining masses of them. A sunken place in the floor, oval-shaped, was lined with soft furs.

Slowly, very slowly, she sank into the furs, looking up at him with eyes full of love. Kith-Kanan felt his heart beat faster as he sat beside his love and took her hands into his. Raising them to his lips, he whispered, “I didn’t know.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know that this is what love truly feels like.” He smiled and leaned closer to her. Her breath was warm in his face. “And,” he added gently, “didn’t know that you were anything but a wild maiden, one who liked to live in the woods.”

“That’s exactly what I am,” said Anaya.

*

She and Kith-Kanan talked of many things in the night and day they spent in the secret cave. He told her of Hermathya and of Sithas, and he felt his heart lighten as he confessed all. The anger and frustration were gone as if they’d never existed. The youthful passion he’d felt for Hermathya was completely unlike the deep love he now felt for Anaya. He knew there were those in Silvanost who would not understand his love for a Kagonesti. Even his own family would be shocked, he was sure.

But he didn’t dwell on that. He filled his mind with only good thoughts, happy thoughts.

One thing Kith-Kanan insisted upon, and to which Anaya eventually agreed, was that she tell Mackeli of his true origins. When they left the cave and returned to the oak tree, they found the boy sitting on a low branch, eating his evening meal.

When he saw the couple, he jumped from the branch and landed lightly in front of them. He took in their happy faces and the fact that they walked hand-in-hand, and demanded, “Are you two finally friends?”

Anaya and Kith-Kanan looked at each other, and a rare thing happened. Anaya smiled. “We are much more than friends,” she said sweetly.

The three of them sat down with their backs to the broad oak’s trunk. As Anaya told Mackeli the truth about his past, the sun dodged in and out of the clouds and red autumn leaves fell around them.

“I’m not your brother?” Mackeli asked when she had finished.

“You are my brother,” Anaya replied firmly, “but we are not of the same blood.”

“And if I was taken from my parents,” he went on slowly, “who were you taken from, Ny?”

“I don’t know, and I never shall. Camirene took me from my mother and father, just as I took you.” She looked to the ground, embarrassed. “I needed a girl child to be the next Keeper of the Forest. I moved so hastily, I didn’t take time to notice that you were a boy.”

Kith-Kanan put an arm on Mackeli’s shoulder. “You won’t be too angry?”

Mackeli stood up and walked slowly away from them. His ever-present hood slipped down, revealing his white, Silvanesti hair. “It’s all so strange,” he said, confused. “I’ve never known any other life than the one I’ve had in the wildwood.” He looked at Anaya. “I guess I’m not angry. I’m... stunned. I wonder what I would have been if I – if Anaya —”

“A farmer,” said Anaya. ‘Your parents were farmers. They grew vegetables.”

She went on to explain that once she realized she’d taken a boy-child instead of a girl, she tried to return the infant Mackeli to his parents, but their house was abandoned when she went back. So she had raised Mackeli as her brother.

Mackeli still seemed dazed by the tale of his abduction, Finally he asked, rather hesitantly, “Will you have to find a girl to raise to be keeper after you?”

Anaya looked beyond him to Kith-Kanan. “No. This time the Keeper of the Forest will give birth to her successor.” Kith-Kanan held out a hand to her. When she took it, Mackeli quietly clasped his small hands around both of theirs.

Chapter 15

THREE MOONS’ DAY,
YEAR OF THE HAWK

The ambassador from Thorbardin arrived in Silvanost on Three-Moons’ Day, midway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. The dwarf’s name was Dunbarth, but he was called Ironthumb by most who knew him. In his youth he had been a champion wrestler. Now, in old age, he was esteemed as the most level-headed of all the counselors to the king of Thorbardin.

Dunbarth traveled with a small entourage: his secretary, four scribes, four dispatch riders, a crate of carrier pigeons, and sixteen warrior dwarves as his personal guard. The ambassador rode in a tall, closed coach made entirely of metal. Even though the brass, iron, and bronze panels were hammered quite thin, with all the skill characteristic of the dwarven race, the coach was still enormously heavy. A team of eight horses drew the conveyance, which held not only Dunbarth, but his staff. The warrior escort rode sturdy, short-legged horses, not swift but blessed with phenomenal endurance. The dwarven party was met on the western bank of the Thon-Thalas by Sithas and an honor guard of twelve warriors.

“Good morrow to you, Lord Dunbarth!” Sithas said heartily. The ambassador stood on one of the steps hanging below the coach door. From there he was high enough to clasp arms with Sithas without the embarrassment of making the far taller elf bend over.

“Life and health to you, speaker’s son,” Dunbarth rumbled. His leggings and tunic were brown cloth and leather, but he sported a short purple cape and broad-brimmed light brown hat. A short feather plumed out from his hatband and matched in color the wide, bright blue belt at his waist. His attire offered a striking contrast to the elegant simplicity of Sithas’s robe and sandals.

The prince smiled. “We have arranged ferries for your company.” With a sweep of his hand he indicated the two large barges moored at the river’s edge.

“Will you ride with me, son of Sithel?” asked Dunbarth importantly.

“I would be honored.”

The dwarf climbed back into his coach, then Sithas grasped the handrail and stepped up into the metal wagon. The top was high enough for him to stand erect in. Nevertheless, Dunbarth ordered his secretary, a swarthy young dwarf, to surrender his seat to Sithas. The elf prince sat. The escort filed in behind the coach, pennants whipping from the tips of their gilded pikes.

“A remarkable thing, this coach,” Sithas said politely. “Is it made entirely of metal?”

“Indeed, noble prince. Not one speck of wood or cloth in the whole contraption!”

Sithas felt the silver curtains that hung in front of the side windows. The dwarves had woven them of metal so fine it felt like cloth.

“Why build it so?” he asked. “Wouldn’t wood be lighter?”

Dunbarth folded his hands across his broad, round belly. “It would indeed, but this is an official coach for Thorbardin ambassadors traveling abroad, so it was made to show off the skills of my people in metal-working,” he replied proudly.

With much shouting and cracking of whips, the ponderous coach rolled onto a barge. The team of horses was cut loose and brought alongside it. Finally, the coach and the warrior escorts were distributed on board.

Dunbarth leaned forward to the coach window. “I would like to see the elves who are going to row this ferry!”

“We have no need for such crude methods,” Sithas said smoothly. “But watch, if it pleases your lordship.”

Dunbarth leaned his elbow on the window edge and looked out over the starboard side of the barge. The ferry master, an elf long in years with yellow hair and mahogany skin, mounted the wooden bulwark and put a brass trumpet to his lips. A long, single note blurted out, sliding down the scale.

In the center of the river, a round green hump broke the surface for an instant, then disappeared again. Large ripples spread out from that point – large enough that when they reached the riverbank they all but swamped a string of canoes tied to the stone pier. The great barge rocked only slightly in the swell.

Again the green hump broke the surface, and this time it rose. The hump became a dome, green and glistening, made up of a hundred angular plates. In front of the dome, the brow of a massive, green head appeared. A large, orange eye with a vertical black pupil the size of a full-grown dwarf appraised the stationary barge. At the tip of the triangular head, two nostrils as big as barrels spewed mist into the air.

“It’s a monster!” Dunbarth cried. “By Reorx!” His hand went to his waist, reaching for a sword he’d forgotten he did not wear.

“No, my lord,” Sithas said soothingly. “A monster it may be, but a tame one. It is our tow to the far shore.”

The dwarven warriors on the barge fingered their heavy axes and muttered to each other. The giant turtle, bred by the elves for just this job, swam to the blunt bow of the ferry and waited patiently as the ferry master and two helpers walked across its huge shell to attach lines to a stout brass chain that encircled the monster’s shell. One of the turtle’s hind legs bumped the barge, knocking the feet out from under the nervous warrior dwarves. The coach creaked backward an inch or two on its iron axles.

“What a brute!” Dunbarth exclaimed, fascinated. “Do such monsters roam freely in the river, Prince Sithas?”

“No, my lord. At the command of my grandfather, Speaker Silvanos, the priests of the Blue Phoenix used their magic to breed a race of giant turtles to serve as beasts of burden on the river. They are enormously strong, of course, and quite longlived.” Sithas sat back imperiously in his springy metal seat.

The ferry master blew his horn again, and the great reptile swung toward the shore of Fallan Island, a mile away. The slack went out of the tow line, and the barge lurched into motion. Sithas heard a loud clatter and knew that the warriors had been thrown off their feet again. He suppressed a smile. “Have you ever been to Silvanost before, Lord Dunbarth?” he asked deferentially.

“No, I’ve not had the pleasure. My uncle, Dundevin Stonefoot, did come to the city once on behalf of our king.”

“I remember,” Sithas mused. “I was but a boy.” It had been fifty years before.

The ferry pitched up and down as they crossed the midpoint of the river. A freshening wind blew the barge sideways, but the turtle paid no attention, paddling steadily on its familiar course. The barge, loaded with tons of coach, dwarves, Dunbarth, Sithas, and the prince’s small honor guard, bobbed on its lines like a cork.

Gray clouds scudded before the scouring wind, hurrying off to the north. Sithas watched them warily, for winter was usually the time of storms in Silvanost. Vast cyclones, often lasting for days, sometimes boiled up out of the Courrain Ocean and lashed across Silvanesti. Wind and rain would drive everyone indoors and the sun would appear only once in two or three weeks. While the countryside suffered during these winter storms, the city was protected by spells woven by the clerics of E’li. Their spells deflected most of the natural fury away to the western mountains, but casting them for each new storm was a severe trial for the priests.

Dunbarth took the bumpy ride in good stride, as befits an ambassador, but his young secretary was not at all happy. He clutched his recording book to his chest and his face went from swarthy to pale to light green as the barge rocked.

“Drollo here hates water,” Dunbarth explained with an amused glint in his eye. “He closes his eyes to take a bath!”

“My lord!” protested the secretary.

“Never fear, Master Drollo,” Sithas said. “It would take far worse wind than this to upset a craft of this size.”

The ferry master tooted another command on his horn, and the turtle swung the barge around. Lord Dunbarth’s guard rattled from one bulwark to the other, and the horse team whinnied and shifted nervously as the deck moved beneath them. The mighty turtle butted his shell against the bow of the ferry and pushed it backward toward the dock. Elves on the dock guided the barge in with long poles. With a short, solid bump, the ferry was docked.

A ramp was lowered into the barge, and the dwarven guard mustered together to march ashore.

They were much disheveled by the bumpy crossing. Plumes were broken off their helmets, capes were stained from the guards’ falls into the scupper, armor was scuffed, but with commendable dignity, the sixteen dwarves shouldered their battle-axes and marched up the ramp to dry land. The horses were re-hitched to the coach and, as whips cracked, they hauled the coach up the ramp.

It began to rain as they rolled through the streets. Dunbarth peered through the curtains at the fabled capital of the elves. White towers gleamed, even under the lowering sky. The peaks of the tallest – the Tower of the Stars and the Quinari Palace – were clothed in murky clouds. Dunbarth, his face as open with wonder as a child’s, admired the intricate spell-formed gardens, the graceful architecture, the almost musical harmony embodied by Silvanost’s sights. Finally, he drew the curtains tight to keep out the gusting rain, then turned his attention to Sithas.

“I know you are heir to the Speaker of the Stars, but how is it you have the task of greeting me, noble Sithas?” he asked diplomatically. “Isn’t it more usual for the younger son to receive foreign ambassadors?”

“There is no younger son in Silvanost,” Sithas replied calmly.

Dunbarth smoothed his iron-gray beard. “Forgive me, Prince, but I was told the speaker had two sons.”

Sithas adjusted the folds of his rain-spattered robes. “I have a twin brother, several minutes younger than I. His name is Kith-Kanan.” Saying the name aloud was strange for Sithas. Though his twin was seldom far from his thoughts, it had been a very long time since the prince had had reason to speak his name. He said it silently to himself: Kith-Kanan.

“Twins are most uncommon among the elven race,” Dunbarth was saying. With effort, Sithas focused on the conversation at hand. “Whereas, among humans, they are not at all uncommon.” Dunbarth lowered his gaze. “Where is your brother, speaker’s son?” he asked solemnly.

“He is in disgrace.” Dunbarth’s face registered only polite attention. Sithas inhaled deeply. “Do you know humans well?” he asked, eager to change the subject.

“I have made a number of journeys as emissary to the court of Ergoth. We’ve had many disputes with the humans over exchange rates of raw iron, copper, tin... but that’s ancient history.” Dunbarth leaned forward, close to Sithas. “It is a wise person who listens twice to everything a human says,” he said softly. “Their duplicity knows no bounds!”

“I shall keep that in mind,” Sithas responded.

By the time the coach arrived at the palace, the storm had strengthened. There was no flashing lightning or crashing thunder, but a swirling, howling wind drove buckets of rain through the city. The coach pulled up close to the north portico of the palace, where there was some shelter from the wind and rain. There, an army of servants stood poised in the downpour, ready to assist the ambassador with his luggage. Lord Dunbarth stepped heavily down from his conveyance, his short purple cape lashing in the wind. He doffed his extravagant hat to the assembled servants.

“My lord, I think we should dispense with the amenities for now,” Sithas shouted over the wind. “Our rainy season seems to have come early this year.”

“As you wish, noble prince,” Dunbarth bellowed.

Stankathan waited inside for the dwarven ambassador and Sithas. He bowed low to them and said, “Excellent lord, if you will follow me, I will show you to your quarters.”

“Lead on,” said Dunbarth grandly. Behind him, the drenched Drollo let out a sneeze.

The ground floor of the north wing housed many of the pieces of art that Lady Nirakina had collected. The delicate and lifelike statues of Morvintas, the vividly colored tapestries of the Women of E’li, the spell-molded plants of the priest Jin Fahrus – all these lent the north wing an air of otherworldly beauty. As the dwarves passed through, servants discreetly mopped the marble floor behind them, blotting away all the mud and rainwater that had been tracked in.

Dunbarth and his entourage were lodged on the third floor of the north wing. The airy suite, with its curtains of gauze and mosaic tile floor in shades of gold and sea-green, was quite unlike any place in the dwarven realm of Thorbardin. The ambassador stopped to stare at a two-foot-long wooden model of a dove poised over his bed. When Drollo set Dunbarth’s bags on the bed, the cloth-covered wings of the dove began to beat slowly, wafting a gentle breeze over the bed.

“By Reorx!” exclaimed the secretary. Dunbarth exploded with laughter.

“A minor spell,” Stankathan explained hurriedly. “Activated when anything or anyone rests on the bed. If it bothers your lordship, I shall have it stopped.”

“No, no. That’s quite all right,” Dunbarth said merrily.

“If you require anything, my lord, simply ring the bell,” said Stankathan.

The elves withdrew. In the hallway beyond Dunbarth’s closed door, Stankathan asked when the human delegation was expected.

“At any time,” answered Sithas. “Keep the staff alert.”

The major-domo bowed. “As you command, sire.”

*

Lord Dunbarth dined that night with the Speaker of the Stars in a quiet, informal dinner that included only the closest confidantes of both sides. They talked for a long time about nothing of importance, taking the measure of each other. Lady Nirakina, in particular, seemed to find the elderly dwarf engaging.

“Are you married, my lord?” she asked at one point.

“No; Lady, never again!” Dunbarth boomed. He shrugged. “I am a widower.”

“I am sorry.”

“She was a good wife, my Brenthia, but a real terror at times.” He drained a full cup of elven nectar. Smoothly, a servant stepped forward to refill his goblet.

“A terror, my lord?” asked Hermathya, intrigued.

“Quite so, Lady. I remember once she burst into the Council of

Thanes and dressed me down for being late for supper five nights in a row. It took years for me to live that down, don’t you know. The Daewar faction used to taunt me, when I was speaking in the council, by saying, ‘Go home, Ironthumb, go home. Your dinner is ready.’ “He laughed loudly, his deep bass voice echoing in the nearly empty Hall of Balif.

“Who are these Daewar?” asked Hermathya. “They sound rude.”

“The Daewar are one of the great clans of the dwarven race,” Sithel explained smoothly. He prided himself on his knowledge of dwarves and their politics. “You are yourself of the Hylar clan, are you not, Lord Dunbarth?”

The ambassador’s blue eyes twinkled with happy cunning. “Your Highness is most knowledgeable.

Yes, I am Hylar, and cousin to many kings of Thorbardin.” He slapped a blunt hand on the back of his secretary, who was seated on his right. “Now, Drollo here, is half-Theiwar, which accounts for his dark looks and strange temperament.” Drollo looked studiously at his plate and said nothing.

“Is it usual for dwarves to marry outside their class?” asked Sithas curiously.

“Not really. Speaking of such things,” Dunbarth said languorously, “I hear tales that some elves have married humans.”

A sharp silence fell in the hall. Sithel leaned back in his tall chair and put a finger to his lips. “It is unfortunately true,” said the speaker tersely. “In the wilds of our western provinces, some of the Kagonesti have taken humans as mates. No doubt there is a shortage of suitable elven spouses. The practice is pernicious and forbidden by our law.”

Dunbarth bowed his head, not in agreement, but in recognition of Sithel’s admirable powers of restraint. The mixed-race issue was a very sensitive one, as the dwarf well knew. His own people were race-proud too, and no dwarf had ever been known to intermarry with another race.

“I met many half-humans among the refugees who lately came to our city for shelter from bandits,” Lady Nirakina said gently. “They were such sad folk, and many were quite presentable. It seems wrong to me to blame them for the follies of their parents.”

“Their existence is not something we can encourage,” Sithel countered with noticeable vigor. “As you say, they are known to be melancholy, and that makes them dangerous. They often figure in acts of violence and crime. They hate the Silvanesti because we are pure in blood, while they languish with human clumsiness and frailty. I suppose you in Thorbardin have heard of the riot we had in late summer?”

“There were mutterings of such an event,” said Dunbarth casually.

“It was all due to the violent natures of some humans and half-humans we had unwisely allowed on the island. The riot was quelled, and the troublemakers driven away.” Nirakina sighed noticeably. Sithel ignored his wife as he continued to make his point. “There can never be peace between Silvanesti and human, unless we keep to our own borders – and our own beds.”

Dunbarth rubbed his red, bulbous nose. He had a heavy ring on each of his fingers, and they glittered in the candlelight. “Is that what you will tell the emissary from Ergoth?”

“It is,” Sithel said vehemently.

“Your wisdom is great, Sithel Twice-Blest. My king has given me almost exactly the same words to speak. If we present a united front to the humans, they will have to accede to our demands.”

The dinner ended quickly. Toasts were made to the health of the king of Thorbardin and to the hospitality of the Speaker of the Stars. That done, Lord Dunbarth and Drollo withdrew.

Sithas strode to the door after it closed behind the ambassador. “That old fox! He was trying to make an alliance with you before the humans even arrive! He wants to promote a conspiracy!”

Sithel dipped his hand in a silver bowl of rosewater held by a servant. “My son, Dunbarth is a master of his craft. He was testing our eagerness to compromise. Had he behaved otherwise, I would have thought King Voldrin a fool to have sent him.”

“This all seems very confusing to me,” complained Lady Nirakina. “Why don’t you all speak the truth and work from there!”

Sithel did a rare thing. He burst out laughing. “Diplomats tell the truth! My dear Kina, the stars would fall from heaven and the gods would faint with horror if diplomats started speaking the truth!”

*

Later that night came a knock on Sithas’s door. A storm-drenched warrior strode in, bowed, and said in a ringing voice, “Forgive this intrusion, Highness, but I bring word of the emissary from Ergoth!”

“Yes?” said Sithas tensely. There was so much talk of treachery, he feared foul play had befallen the humans.

“Highness, the ambassador and his party are waiting on the bank of the river. The ambassador demands that he be met by a representative of the royal house.”

“Who is this human?” Sithas asked.

“He gave his name as Ulwen, first praetor of the emperor of Ergoth,” replied the soldier.

“First praetor, eh? Is the storm worse?” Sithas questioned.

“It is bad, Highness. My boat nearly sank crossing the Thon-Thalas.”

“And yet this Ulwen insists on crossing immediately?”

The soldier said yes. “You will pardon me, sire, for saying so, but he is very arrogant, even for a human.”

“I shall go,” Sithas said simply. “It is my duty. Lord Dunbarth was met by me, and it is only just that I greet Praetor Ulwen likewise.”

The prince left with the soldier, but not before sending word to the clerics of E’li, to ask them to begin working their spells to deflect the storm. It was unusual for so strong a storm to come before the winter season. The conference promised to be difficult enough without the added threat of wind and water.

Chapter 16

WHILE THE STORM RAGED

How wonderful this time is, Kith-Kanan thought. Not only did he have his growing love for Anaya, which was sweeter than anything he’d ever known, but his friendship with Mackeli, as well. They had become a family – Anaya, his wife, and Mackeli, like a son.

It was not an easy life, by any means. There was always work to be done, but there was time to laugh too, to swim in the pool, to take short flying excursions on Arcuballis, to tell stories around the fire at night. Kith-Kanan had began to understand the Silvanesti who had left Silvanost to start new lives in the wilderness. The days ran their own course in the forest. There were no calendars and no clocks. There was no social hierarchy either; there were no rich and no poor. You hunted for yourself, provided for your own needs. And no one stood between an elf and the gods. As he looked over a forest glade, or knelt by a brook, Kith-Kanan felt closer to the gods than he ever had in the cold, marble precincts of Silvanost’s temples.

No priests, no taxes, no protocol. For a long time, Kith-Kanan had believed that his life had ended the day he’d left Silvanost. Now he knew it had been a new beginning.

As the weeks went by, hunting grew poorer and poorer. Anaya went out, sometimes for two or three days at a time, and returned only with a brace of rabbits, squirrels, or other small game. At one point she had been reduced to catching pigeons, a poor return for her days in the woods.

Nothing like this had ever happened before, according to Mackeli. Usually, Anaya went out and set a snare or trap and a likely prize would practically fall into it. Now, the animals were nowhere to be seen. In hopes of adding to the meager hunting, Kith-Kanan worked harder to develop his woodland skills. He hunted frequently, but had yet to bring anything back.

This day a lone hart moved slowly through the forest, its small hooves sinking deep into drifts of fallen leaves. Its black nose twitched as the wind brought smells from far away.

Kith-Kanan, wedged ten feet off the ground into the fork of a linden tree, was motionless. He willed the deer not to smell him, not to see him. Then, as slowly as possible, the prince drew his bow and swiftly let fly. His aim was true. The hart leaped away, but only for a few yards before it collapsed into the leaves.

Kith-Kanan let out a yell of triumph. Eight months in the wildwood, and this was his first hunting success. He skittered down the tree and ran to the fallen deer. Yes! The arrow had hit the beast right in the heart.

He dressed the carcass. As he slung it over his shoulder, Kith-Kanan realized that he couldn’t stop grinning. Wouldn’t Anaya be surprised?

The air was chill, and under his burden Kith-Kanan panted, sending little puffs of vapor from his nostrils and mouth. He walked quickly, making a lot of noise, but it didn’t matter now. He had made a kill! He’d been walking for some time when the first flakes of snow began to fall. A sort of steady hiss pervaded the forest as the light flakes filtered down through the bare tree limbs. It wasn’t a heavy fall, but as the prince’s trek continued, the brown leaves on the forest floor gradually acquired a thin frosting of white.

He climbed the hill to the clearing, meeting Mackeli on the way.

“Look what I have!” Kith-Kanan exclaimed. “Fresh meat!”

“Congratulations, Kith. You’ve worked hard to get it,” the boy said, but a frown creased his forehead.

“What’s the matter?”

Mackeli looked at him and blinked. “It’s snowing.”

Kith-Kanan shifted the weight of the carcass to a more comfortable position. “What’s wrong with that? It is winter, after all.”

“You don’t understand,” said the boy. He took Kith-Kanan’s quiver and bow, and together they proceeded up the hill. “It never snows in our clearing.” They gained the crest of the hill. The clearing was already lightly dusted with snow.

With a stone axe, Kith-Kanan removed the rib section and gave it to Arcuballis. The griffon had been brought to the hollow oak, and a roof of hides had been stretched from the overhead limbs to keep the rain off the mount. The noble eagle head of Arcuballis protruded from the crude shelter. The beast repeatedly ruffled its neck feathers and shook its head, trying to shake off the snowflakes. Kith-Kanan dropped the meat at the griffon’s feet.

“This is no weather for you, eh boy?” he said, scratching the animal’s neck through its thick feathers. Arcuballis made hoarse grunting sounds and lowered its head to its meal.

Kith-Kanan left his dagger and sword in a covered basket inside Arcuballis’s shelter. Brushing the snow off his shoulders, he ducked into the tree. It was snug and warm inside, but very close. A small fire burned on the hearth. As the prince sat crosslegged by the fire and warmed his hands, Mackeli scuttled about in the stores of nuts and dried fruit overhead.

After a short time, the bark-covered door swung open. Anaya stood in the doorway.

“Hello!” Kith-Kanan cried cheerfully. “Come in out of the cold. I had good hunting today!”

Anaya pulled the door closed behind her. When autumn arrived, she had changed from her green-dyed buckskins to natural brown ones. Now, coated with snow, she looked small and cold and unhappy. Kith-Kanan went to her and pushed back the hood from her head. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly, searching for an answer in her eyes.

“It’s snowing in my clearing,” she said flatly.

“Mackeli said that this is unusual. Still, remember that the weather follows its own laws, Anaya.” Kith-Kanan tried to soothe the hopeless look on her face; after all, it was only a little snow. “We’ll be fine. Did you see the deer I took?” He’d hung the quarters of meat outside to cool.

“I saw it,” she said. Anaya’s eyes were dull and lifeless. She pulled free of Kith-Kanan’s arms and unlaced her rawhide jacket. Still standing by the door, she looked at him. “You did well. I didn’t even see a deer, much less take one. Something is wrong. The animals no longer come as they used to. And now snow in the clearing...”

The keeper threw her jacket on the floor and looked up at the chimney hole. Dry, cold flakes fell in, vanishing in the column of rising smoke before they reached the fire. “I must go to the cave and commune with the forest. The Forestmaster may know what has happened,” she said, then sighed. “But I am so tired now. Tomorrow. I will go tomorrow.”

Kith-Kanan sat by the fire and pulled Anaya gently down beside him. When she put her head in his lap and closed her eyes, the prince leaned back against the side of the tree, intending to keep an eye on the fire. He continued to stroke Anaya’s face. In spite of her distress over the snow, Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe that anything was really wrong. He had seen snow in the streets of Silvanost after many years of none. As he’d said, the weather followed its own laws. Kith-Kanan’s eyes closed, and he dozed. The fire shrank in its circle of stones, and the first flakes of snow reached the floor of the tree, collecting on Anaya’s eyelashes.

Kith-Kanan awoke with the slow realization that he was cold. He tried to move and discovered he was buried under two bodies – Anaya on his left and Mackeli on his right. Though asleep, the need for warmth had drawn them together. Furs were piled up around them, and as Kith-Kanan opened his eyes, he saw that more than half a foot of snow had collected in the tree. The snowfall had extinguished the coals of the fire and drifted around the sleeping trio.

“Wake up,” he said thickly. When neither Anaya nor Mackeli moved, Kith-Kanan patted his wife’s cheek. She exhaled sharply and turned over, putting her back to him. He tried to rouse Mackeli, but the boy only started to snore.

“By Astarin,” he muttered. The cold had obviously numbed their senses. He must build a fire.

Kith-Kanan heaved himself up, pushing aside the inch of snow that had fallen across his lower legs. His breath made a long stream of fog. There was dry kindling in one of the wattle baskets, against the wall and out of the way of the falling snow. He dug the snow out of the hearth with his bare hands and laid a stand of twigs and bark shavings on the cold stones. With a flint and strike stone, he soon had a smoldering pile of tinder. Kith-Karen fanned it with his breath, and soon a crackling fire was burning.

It had stopped snowing, but the bit of sky he could glimpse through the chimney hole was gray and threatening. Reluctantly the prince eased the door open, even against the resistance from the two feet of snow that had drifted against the tree.

The clearing had been transformed. Where formerly the forest had been wrought in green and brown, now it was gray and white. An unbroken carpet of snow stretched across the clearing. All the imperfections of the ground were lost under the blanket of white.

A snuffling sound caught his ear. Kith-Kanan walked around the broad tree trunk and saw Arcuballis huddled under its flimsy shelter, looking miserable.

“Not like your warm stall in Silvanost, is it, old friend?” Kith-Kanan said. He untied the griffon’s halter and led it out a few yards from the tree.

“Fly, boy. Warm yourself and come back.” Arcuballis made a few faltering steps forward. “Go on. It’s all right.”

The griffon spread its wings and took to the air. It circled the clearing three times, then vanished upward into the low gray clouds.

Kith-Kanan examined the venison haunches he’d hung up the day before. They were frozen solid.

He untied one and braced it on his shoulder.

Back inside the tree, it was already much warmer, thanks to the fire. Anaya and Mackeli were nestled together like spoons in a drawer.

Kith-Kanan smiled at them and knelt to saw two cutlets from the venison haunch. It was hard going, but soon he had whittled the steaks out and had them roasting on a spit over the fire.

“Mmm.” Anaya yawned. Eyes still closed, she asked, “Do I smell venison roasting?”

Kith-Kanan smiled again. “You certainly do, wife. I am making our dinner.”

She stretched long and hard. “It smells wonderful.” She yawned again. “I’m so tired.”

“You just lie there and rest,” he replied. “I’ll provide for us this time.” The prince gave his attention to the venison cutlets. He turned them carefully, making sure they were cooked all the way through. When they were done, he took one, still on its stick, and knelt by Anaya. “Dinner is served, my lady,” he said and touched her shoulder.

Anaya smiled and her eyelids fluttered open. She raised her head and looked at him.

Kith-Kanan cried out in surprise and dropped the steak onto the wet ground.

Anaya’s dark hazel. eyes had changed color. They had become. vividly green, like two shining emeralds.

Chapter 17

QUARTERED WITH A GENTLEMAN

Rain, driven sideways by the wind, tore at the elves who stood on the stone pier at the river’s edge. The far bank of the Thon-Thalas could not be seen at all, and the river itself was wild with storm-tossed waves. Through this chaos wallowed the great barge, drawn as before by a giant turtle.

The more Sithas saw of the growing storm, the more he was convinced it was not natural. His suspicion fell upon the waiting humans from Ergoth. Their emperor was known to have a corps of powerful magicians in his service. Was this premature, violent storm the result of some dire human magic?

“Surely, Highness, you should not risk this crossing!” warned the commander of the escort standing with Sithas.

The prince held his sodden cloak closed at his throat. “The ambassador from Ergoth is waiting, Captain,” he replied. The turtle turned end-on to the storm waves, which crashed in green torrents over its high-domed shell. “It is important that we show these humans we are masters of our own fate,” Sithas continued levelly. “Praetor Ulwen does not expect us to venture out in the storm to meet him. If we don’t, when the storm ends he can rail long and loud about the timidity of elves.” Sithas blotted water off his face with his wet cloak. “I will not cede that advantage to the humans, Captain.”

The dark-haired Kagonesti did not look convinced.

The barge was close now. The thick wooden hull squeezed a swell of water between itself and the shore. This swell, some ten feet high, fell over Sithas and his escort, drenching them further. The guards cursed and muttered, shuffling about the pier. Sithas stood imperturbable, his pale hair running in rivulets down the back of his emerald cloak.

The ferry master shouted from the deck, “I can’t moor in this swell, Highness!”

Sithas looked to the captain. “Follow me,” he advised. Turning back the flaps of his cloak, Sithas gathered up the lower edge, so as not to entangle his legs. With a running start, he leaped the gap between the pier end and the heaving barge. The prince hit, rolled, and got to his feet again. The soldiers gaped in amazement.

“Come on! Are you fighters or farmers?” Sithas called.

The captain squared his shoulders. If the heir to the throne was going to kill himself, then he would die, too. Once the captain was across, he and Sithas stationed themselves to grab the hurtling warriors as they, too, landed on the barge.

The ferry’s deck rose and fell like the chest of a breathing beast. When everyone was safely aboard, the ferry master blew his trumpet. The implacable mammoth turtle paddled away from shore.

Rain swirled and lashed at them. The scuppers ran full, and all sorts of loose debris sloshed back and forth on the ferry’s deck. The ferocious pounding near the shore lessened as the raft gained the deeper water in the center of the river. Here the danger was from the churning current, as the wind drove the surface water against the natural flow of the river. The thick chains that secured the barge to the towing turtle snapped hard, first the port, then to starboard. The giant reptile rolled with these blows, which sometimes lifted one of its thick green flippers out of the water. As if resenting this challenge to its strength, the turtle put its head down and pulled even harder for the western bank.

The captain of the escort struggled forward to report to Sithas. “Sire, there’s a lot of water coming into the boat. Waves are breaking over the sides.” Unperturbed, the-prince asked the ferry master what they should do.

“Bail,” was all he had to say.

The soldiers got on their knees and scooped water in their helmets. A chain was formed, each elf passing a full helmet to the leeward side and handing an empty helmet back to the first fellow bailing.

“There’s the shore!” sang out the ferry master. When Sithas squinted into the rain, he could make out a gray smudge ahead. Slowly the shoreline grew more distinct. On the slight hill overlooking the boat landing stood a large tent. A flag whipped from the center peak of the tent.

Sithas spat rainwater and again clutched his cloak tightly at his throat. In spite of their request to be met and conducted into the city here the humans sat, encamped for the night. Already they were leading the speaker’s son around by the nose. Such arrogance made Sithas’s blood burn. Still, there was nothing to be gained by storming into the ambassador’s tent in a blind rage.

He stared at the swimming turtle and then farther ahead at the gently sloping riverbank. With a firm nod to himself, Sithas teetered across the pitching deck to where the soldiers still knelt, bailing out water with their helmets. He told them to hold fast when the barge reached the shore and to be prepared for a surprise. When Sithas informed the ferry master of his idea, that tired, storm-lashed fellow grinned.

“We’ll do it, sire!” he said and put his trumpet to his lips. On his first attempt, instead of a blaring call, water spurted out. Cursing, he rapped the trumpet’s bell on the bulwark and tried again. The command note cut through the noise of the storm. The turtle swung right, pulling the barge to one side of the pier ahead. The trumpet sounded again, and the turtle raised its great green head. Its dull orange eyes blinked rapidly, to keep the rain out.

There were a half-dozen caped figures on the dock, waiting. Sithas assumed they were the Ergothian ambassador’s unfortunate guards, ordered to wait in the rain should the elves deign to show up. When the barge turned aside, they filed off the dock and tried to get in front of the approaching ferry. The turtle’s belly scraped in the mud, and its shell humped out of the water a full twenty feet high. The humans scattered before the awesome onslaught of the turtle. The elf warriors on deck let out a cheer.

The ferry master blew a long rattling passage on his horn, and the turtle dug its massive flippers into the riverside mud. The bank was wide and the angle shallow, so the great beast had no problem heaving itself out of the water. The driving rain rapidly cleansed it of clinging mud, and the turtle crawled up the slope.

The bow of the barge hit bottom, and everyone on board was thrown to the deck. The ferry master bounced to his feet and repeated the surging trumpet signal. All four of the turtle’s flippers were out of the water now, and it continued up the hill. As Sithas got to his feet, he resisted an urge to laugh triumphantly. He looked down at the human guards, who were running from the sight of the turtle.

“Stand fast!” he shouted decisively. “I am Prince Sithas of the Silvanesti! I have come to greet your ambassador!” Some of the gray-caped figures halted. Others continued to run. One human, who wore an officer’s plume on his tall, conical helmet, tentatively approached the beached barge.

“I am Endrac, commander of the ambassador’s escort. The ambassador has retired for the night,” he shouted up at Sithas.

“Then go and wake him! The storm may last another day, so this is your master’s best chance to reach the city without suffering an avoidable, but major delay.”

Endrac threw up his hands and proceeded up the hill. He was not much faster than the turtle, weighed down as he was by armor. The giant turtle ground its way up, inexorable, dragging the barge behind it. The warriors were plainly impressed by the feat, for the barge obviously weighed many tons.

Torches blossomed on the top of the hill, all around the elaborate tent of the Ergothian ambassador. Sithas was gratified to see all the frantic activity. He turned to the ferry master and told him to urge the beast along. The elf put the trumpet to his lips once more and sounded the call.

They were quite a sight, rumbling up the hill. The turtle’s flippers, each larger than four elves, dug into the soft ground and threw back gouts of mud against the hull of the barge. The chains that shackled the beast to the boat rattled and clanked rhythmically. The giant grunted deep in its chest as the effort began to tell on it.

The ground flattened out, so the ferry master signaled for the turtle to slow down. The barge tilted forward on its flat bottom, jarring the elven warriors. They laughed and good-naturedly urged the ferry master to speed up again.

The ambassador’s tent was only a few yards away now. A cordon of human soldiers formed around it, capes flapping in the wind. They stood at attention, spears against their shoulders. The turtle loomed over them. Endrac appeared.

“You there, Endrac!” Sithas shouted. “You’d best disperse your fighters. Our turtle hasn’t eaten lately, and if you provoke him, he might eat your men.”

Endrac complied, and his soldiers moved with grateful speed out of the turtle’s way.

“There now, ferry master, you’d better rein him in,” cried Sithas. A quick blast on the trumpet, and the turtle grunted to a stop.

A human in civilian dress appeared at the door of the tent. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“I am Sithas, son of Sithel, Speaker of the Stars. Your ambassador sent word he wished to be met. I have come. It will be a grave insult if the ambassador does not see me.”

The human drew his cape around himself in a quick, angry motion. “A thousand pardons, noble prince,” he said, vexed. “Wait but a moment. I will speak to the ambassador.”

The human went inside the tent.

Sithas put one foot on the port set of chains that ran from the ferry to the halter encircling the turtle’s shell. The links were as thick as the prince’s wrist. No one but an elf could have walked the fifteen feet along the swaying length of chain in the rain, but Sithas did it easily. Once he reached the turtle’s back, he was able to move briskly over the shell to the beast’s head. The turtle, placid as all his kind were, paid no mind as the elf prince stepped gingerly on its head.

The human appeared again. This close, Sithas could see he was a mature man; his red-brown hair and full beard were sprinkled with gray. He was richly dressed in the vulgar Ergothian style – which meant he was clad in strong, dark colors, wine-red and black, with a golden torc at his throat and a fur-lined cape.

“Well?” Sithas demanded from his lofty perch atop the turtle’s head.

“The ambassador asks if you would care to come in out of the rain for a short time, while preparations are made to go,” said the human more solicitously.

Using the deep creases in the skin of the creature’s neck as hand and footholds, Sithas descended the twelve feet to the ground. Once down, he glanced up at the turtle; a huge eye regarded him benignly.

The bearded human was tall for his race. His gray eyes were hard as he bowed. “I amUlvissen, seneschal to Ulwen, praetor of the empire,” he said with dignity.

With a sweep of his arm, Ulvissen indicated Sithas should precede him. The prince strode into the tent.

It was the size of a largish house. The first room Sithas entered featured the imperial standard of Ergoth, a golden axe crossed with a hammer, on a field of dark crimson. The second room was larger and far mare elaborate. Thick carpets covered the ground. In the center of the room, a fire burned on a portable blackiron hearth. Smoke was carried out through a metal chimney, made of sections of bronze pipe jointed together. Couches and chairs covered with purple velvet were scattered around the room. A lap desk full of rolled maps lay open to Sithas’s left, and a table laden with decanters of drink stood on his right. Glass-globed oil lamps lit the room as bright as day. Wind howled outside, and rain drummed on the varnished silk roof.

A flap across the room was pulled back, and four thick-armed servants entered, carrying a chair supported by rods through its armrests. Seated in the chair was an ancient human, far older than Ulvissen. His bald head was hunched deep between his shoulders. His skin was the color of egg yolks, and his rheumy eyes seemed to have no distinct color. Sithas did not need to know much about human health to recognize that this was a sick man.

The prince was about to speak to this venerable man when another person entered, a female. She was altogether different from the frail figure in the chair. Tall, clad in a deep red velvet gown, she had dark brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. More voluptuous than any elven maiden, the human woman appeared less than half the age of the man in the chair.

When she spoke, it was with a velvety voice. “Greetings, Prince Sithas. On behalf of my husband, Praetor Ulwen, I greet you.” She rested her hands on the back of the old man’s chair. “My name is Teralind denCaer,” she added.

Sithas bowed his head slightly. “In the name of my father, Speaker of the Stars, I greet you, Praetor Ulwen, and Lady Teralind,” he said respectfully.

She came out from behind the chair and went to the table where the decanters were. Teralind poured a pale white liquid into a tall glass goblet. “We did not expect anyone to meet us. Not until the storm was over,” she said, smiling slightly.

“I received the ambassador from Thorbardin this morning,” Sithas replied. “It was only proper that I come and greet the emperor’s envoy as well.”

The old man in the chair still had said nothing, and he remained silent as Teralind drank. Then she passed in front of Sithas, gown rustling as she walked. By lamplight, her eyes were a foreign shade of brown, dark like her hair. Teralind sat and bade-Sithas sit down, too.

“Excuse me, Lady, but is the praetor well?” he asked cautiously. The old human’s eyes were closed.

“Ulwen is very old,” she said with a tinge of sadness. “And it is very late.”

“I can’t help but wonder why the emperor did not choose a younger man for this task,” Sithas ventured softly.

Terafind combed through her thick, wavy hair with the fingers of one hand. “My husband is the senior praetor of the empire. Also he is the only member of the ruling council to have dealt with Silvanesti before.”

“Oh? When was that?”

“Forty-six years ago. Before I was born, actually. I believe he worked on what was called the Treaty of Thelgaard’” she said distractedly.

Sithas tried to remember the obscure treaty, and could only recall that it had something to do with the cloth trade. “I’m sorry I did not have the pleasure of meeting the praetor then,” he said. “I must have been away.”

Teralind looked at the elf oddly for an instant. Humans never could adjust to elven life spans. “In deference to the age of the ambassador,” Sithas added, “I would be willing to stay the night here and escort you all to the city tomorrow.”

“That is acceptable. Ulvissen will find you a suitable place to rest,” Teralind agreed. She rose suddenly to her feet. “Good night, Your Highness,” she said courteously, then snapped her fingers. The servants hoisted Ulwen up, turned ponderously, and carried him out.

*

Sithas was given a bed in a private comer of the great tent. The bed itself was large enough to sleep four grown elves and far too soft for the prince’s taste. It seemed strange to him that humans should prize comfort so excessively.

The rain struck the roof of the tent with a rhythmic beat, but that did not lull Sithas to sleep. Instead, his mind wandered to thoughts of Hermathya. He would have to work harder to reconcile their differences, he decided. But his wife’s face did not remain long in Sithas’s thoughts. Kith-Kanan soon pushed to the forefront. His twin would probably have enjoyed Sithas’s little gesture of bringing turtle and barge to the ambassador’s very door.

Kith was a long way off now, Sithas thought. So many miles and so much time lay between them. As the prince closed his eyes, he felt the faint but persistent tie that had always existed between him and Kith-Kanan, but now he concentrated on it. The rain grew louder in his ears. It was like a pulse, the beat of a living heart. Feelings began to come to him – the smell of the woodland, the sounds of night animals that no longer lived in the more settled parts of Silvanesti. He opened his mind further, and a flood of sensations came to him.

He saw, as in shadow, a dark elven woman. She was strong and deeply connected to the Power, even as the high clerics and the Speaker of the Stars were said to be. But the dark woman was part of an ancient group, different from the gods, but almost as great. Sithas had an impression of green leaves, of soaring trees, and pools of still, clear water. And there was a battle raging inside this woman. She was trying to leave the Power, and it did not want her to go. The reason she wished to leave was clear, too. She loved Kith, and he loved her. Sithas felt that very strongly.

A word came to him. A name.

“Anaya,” he said aloud.

The link was broken when he spoke. Sithas sat up, his head swimming with strange, unexplained impressions. There was a struggle going on, a contest for possession of the dark elf woman. The struggle was between Kith-Kanan and the ancient powers of nature. The storm... not the work of human magicians, or any magicians. The storm was a manifestation of the struggle.

As Sithas lay back on the ridiculously large bed, a twinge of sadness entered his heart. The short connection had only emphasized how truly far from home his twin had journeyed.

And Sithas knew he dare tell no one what he’d learned.

Chapter 18

IN THE FOREST,
YEAR OF THE RAM

(2215 PC)

The changes in the keeper continued. Anaya’s toes and fingers, then the points of her elbows, became light green. She felt no pain and suffered no loss of movement, though it did seem she was becoming less sensitive all the time. Her hearing, formerly so acute, became duller and duller. Her eyesight lost its uncanny focus. Her stealthy tread grew slow and clumsy. At first she was short-tempered with the changes, but her spirits gradually lightened. Things the Forestmaster had told her during her long sojourn away from Kith-Kanan were now making more sense, she said. These changes, Anaya believed, were the price of her life joined to Kith-Kanan’s. While she might bemoan the loss of her preternatural agility and hunting skill, her new life did make her very happy.

The winter was long and, as the forest was no longer Anaya’s to command, very hard. She and Kith-Kanan hunted almost every day that it wasn’t actually snowing, They had some success; there were rabbits and pheasants and the occasional deer to be had. But they more often ate Mackeli’s nuts and berries. As their bellies shrank and their belts tightened, conversation diminished, too. When the wind howled outside and the snow drifted so high the door became hard to open, the three sat within the hollow tree, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts. Days went by without any of them speaking a single word.

Mackeli, too, was changing, though his metamorphosis was more easily understood. He had reached the time in a young elf’s life when the physical limitations of childhood give way to an adult physique. Compared to the great life span of an elf, these changes take place rather quickly. Even without an abundance of food, he grew taller, stronger, and restless – and often rude, as well. The boy’s impatience was so high that Kith-Kanan forbade him to accompany them hunting; Mackeli’s fidgeting scared off the already scarce game.

While his wife and friend changed in outward, tangible ways, Kith-Kanan grew, too, but inside. His values had changed since coming to the forest, certainly, and now his entire attitude toward life was undergoing fundamental change. All his life he had played at being prince. Since his brother Sithas was the heir, Kith-Kanan had no real responsibilities, no true duties. He took up warrior training and hunting as hobbies. He taught Arcuballis tricks and practiced aerial maneuvers. These activities had filled his days.

But it was different now. He could glide through the forest, silent as a wraith. He didn’t have to rely on Mackeli’s gathering skills or Anaya’s hunting any longer. In fact, more and more, they relied on him. This was a good life, the prince decided, and he could now bless the day his father had taken Hermathya from him. Though he had cared for her, Hermathya was much better suited to his twin – both of them so correct, proper, and dutiful. And with his forgiveness of his father came a sense of loss. He found himself missing his family. Still, he knew that his life was in the forest, not the city.

Another, more natural, change had come to Anaya. She was pregnant. She and her husband had been staring dreamily into the fire one night when she had told him. At first Kith-Kanan was stunned. His astonishment gave way to a great, heartfilling joy. He embraced her so hard that she squealed in protest. The thought that a new life, one he had helped create, was growing inside of her made Anaya that much more precious to the prince. It made their life together that much richer. He showered her with kisses and declarations of his love until Mackeli grumbled for them both to shut up, since he was trying to sleep.

The day came, not too long after, when the first icicles began to melt off the oak’s bare branches.

The sun came out and stayed for a week, and all the ice melted and ran off the tree. The snow retreated to the deep shadows around the rim of the clearing.

They emerged from the tree, blinking at the bright sunshine. It was as if this was the first sunny day they’d ever experienced. Anaya moved stiffly, rubbing her arms and thighs. Her hands and feet were fully colored green by this time.

Kith-Kanan stood in the center of the clearing, eyes shut, face turned to the sky. Mackeli, who was nearly as tall as Kith-Kanan now, bounded around like a deer, though certainly not as gracefully.

“We’ve never had such a winter,” Anaya stated, gazing at the snow still hiding at the base of the trees.

“If the weather holds, the hunting will be good,” Kith-Kanan noted confidently. “All the hibernating animals will be coming out.”

“Free! Ha, ha, free!” Mackeli rejoiced. He grabbed Anaya’s hands and tried to dance her around in a circle. She resisted and pulled her hands away with a grimace.

“Are you all right?” asked Kith-Kanan worriedly.

“I am stiff and sore,” she complained. She stopped rubbing her arm and stood up straight. “I’ll work the cold out of my bones, don’t worry.”

The novelty, but not the pleasure, of the first spring day wore off, and the trio returned to the tree to eat. In honor of the fine day, Kith-Kanan cut down their last haunch of venison. Kith-Kanan had been teaching Arcuballis to hunt for game and bring back what it caught. The griffon could cover a much wider range than they, and it grew more adept with each hunt. The last time the creature had brought back the very deer Kith-Kanan was carving.

Now, Kith-Kanan took Arcuballis from its hide tent and, with whistles and encouraging words, sent the beast off on another expedition. When the griffon was lost from sight, the elf prince built a fire outside, not an easy task with all the damp wood. He sliced off a sizeable roast from the hard, smoked haunch. While it cooked, Mackeli came out with his usual fare; arrow root, walnuts, dried blueberries, and wild rice. He looked at the brown assortment in his basket, then at the deer roast, sizzling and dripping fat into the fire. He squatted by Kith-Kanan, who was turning the meat on a rough spit.

“Could I have some?” asked Mackeli tentatively. Kith-Kanan gave him an astonished look. “It smells awfully good. Just a small piece?” the boy pleaded.

Kith-Kanan sliced off a thin strip of cooked meat, speared it with his dagger, and put it in Mackeli’s basket. The elf boy eagerly picked it up with his fingers – and promptly dropped it again. It was quite hot. Kith-Kanan gave him a sharpened twig, and Mackeli snagged the piece of meat and raised it to his mouth.

A look of utter concentration came over his face as he chewed. Kith-Kanan inquired, “Do you like it?”

“Well, it’s different.” The slice was gone. “Could I have some more?” The elf prince laughed and cut a larger piece.

Anaya came out of the tree, dragging their furs and bedding into the sun. The red and yellow lines she had painted on her face enhanced the already startling green of her eyes. The elf woman glanced over at the two males, crouched by the fire, and saw Mackeli nibbling a slice of venison. She ran over and slapped the meat from his hand.

“It is forbidden for you to eat meat!” she said heatedly.

“Oh? And who forbids me? You?” demanded Mackeli defiantly.

“Yes!”

Kith-Kanan rose to pull them apart, but as one Mackeli and Anaya shoved him back. He sprawled on the wet turf, astonished.

“You did not kill the animal, Keli, so you have no right to eat it!” Anaya said fiercely.

“You didn’t kill it either! Kith did!” he countered.

“That’s different. Kith is a hunter, you’re only a boy. Stick to your nuts and berries.” The “boy” Anaya snarled at was now a head taller than she.

“Are those eyes of yours blind?” Mackeli argued. “Nothing is as it was. The spirits of the forest have turned their backs on you. You’ve lost your stealth, your keen senses, and your agility. You’ve turned green! I’ve gotten bigger and stronger. I can shoot a bow. You —” Mackeli was sputtering in his rage “— you don’t belong in the forest any longer!”

Within the sharply painted lines, Anaya’s eyes grew large. She made a fist and struck Mackeli smartly on the face. He fell on his back. Kith-Kanan realized things had gone too far.

“Stop it, both of you!” he barked. Anaya had advanced over Mackeli, ready to hit him again, but Kith-Kanan pushed her back. She stiffened, and for a moment he thought she would take a swing at him. After a moment, the anger left her and she stood aside.

The prince helped Mackeli to his feet. A smear, of blood showed under the boy’s nose.

“I know we’ve been cooped up together too long, but there’s no reason for fighting,” Kith-Kanan said severely. “Mackeli is reaching his adulthood, Ny, you can’t hold him back.” He turned to the boy, who was dabbing at his bleeding nose with his sleeve. “And you have no right saying things like that to her. Not even the Forestmaster herself has said Anaya doesn’t belong in the wood any more. So guard your tongue, Keli. If you wish to be a warrior, you must learn self-control.”

Suddenly they heard a pair of hands clapping behind them and a voice exclaiming, “Well said.”

Kith-Kanan, Anaya, and Mackeli turned abruptly. A score of men holding swords or crossbows flanked the hollow tree. Standing by the door, dressed in elegant but impractical crimson, was the half-human Voltorno – as strong and healthy as ever, from the look of it.

“You!” hissed Anaya.

“Stand very still,” cooed Voltorno. “I would hate to perforate you after such a touching performance. It really was worthy of the finest playhouse in Daltigoth.” He nodded, and the humans fanned out carefully, surrounding the trio.

“So you survived your wound,” Kith-Kanan said tersely. “What a pity.”

“Yes,” he said with calm assurance. “We had a first-rate healer on the ship. We returned to Ergoth, where I made known your interference in our operation. I was commissioned to return and deal with you.”

Voltorno flipped back his hip-length cape, exposing a finely wrought sword hilt. He walked to Anaya, looking her up and down. “Bit of a savage, isn’t she?” he said with a sneer to Kith-Kanan and turned to Mackeli. “Could this be our wild boy? Grown a bit, haven’t you?” Mackeli kept his hands at his sides, but he was breathing hard. Voltorno shoved him lightly with one gloved hand. “You’re the one who shot me,” he said, still smiling pleasantly. “I owe you something for that.” He pushed Mackeli again. Kith-Kanan gathered himself to spring on Voltorno. As if he were reading the prince’s mind, Voltorno said to his men, “If either of them moves, kill them both.”

The half-human grasped the gilded hilt of his sword and drew the slim blade from its scabbard. He held it by the blade; the pommel bobbed just inches from Mackelis chest. The boy stared at the sword hilt as he backed away. Mackeli’s heels crunched in some of the late snow until his back bumped a tree at the edge of the clearing.

“Where will you go now?” asked Voltorno, his gray eyes gleaming.

Kith-Kanan freed his dagger from his belt when the bowmen turned their attention to the halfhuman. The elf prince realized that only one of them was behind him, about eight feet away. He nudged Anaya lightly with his elbow. She didn’t look at him, but nudged him back.

Kith-Kanan turned and hurled the dagger at the bowman. The good elven iron punched through the man’s leather jerkin. Without a word, he fell back, dead. Kith-Kanan broke left, Anaya right. The humans started yelling and opened fire. Those on the left shot at Anaya. Those on the right shot at Kith-Kanan. The only thing they hit was each other.

About half of the group went down, shot by their own comrades. Kith-Kanan dived for the muddy ground and rolled to the man he’d killed with his dagger. The human’s crossbow had discharged on impact with the ground. Kith-Kanan pulled a quarrel from the dead man’s quiver and struggled to cock the bow.

Anaya also threw herself on the ground, drawing her flint knife as she fell. She was a good ten yards from Mackeli and the archers, who were reloading their weapons. Mackeli reacted to the confusion by trying to snatch Voltorno’s sword, but the half-human was too quick for him. In no time Voltorno had reversed his grip and thrust his weapon at Mackeli. The boy ducked, and Voltorno’s blade stuck in a tree.

“Get them! Kill them!” Voltorno shouted.

Mackeli ran in and out of the trees along the clearing’s edge. Quarrels flicked by him.

Across the clearing, Anaya crawled away in the wet turf, using her toes and elbows. As the archers concentrated their fire on Mackeli, she rose and threw herself at the back of the nearest man. Her moves were not as graceful as they once were, but her flint knife was as deadly as ever. One of the men, wounded by a quarrel, managed to sit up and aim his crossbow at Anaya’s back. Luckily, Kith-Kanan picked him off before he could shoot.

Mackeli had plunged into the woods. Several of the surviving humans ran after him, but Voltorno called them back.

Anaya also made it to cover in the woods. She ran only a dozen yards or so before dropping to the ground. In seconds, she was buried in the leaves. Two humans tramped right past her.

Kith-Kanan tried to cock the bow a second time. From a sitting position though, it wasn’t easy; the bow was too stiff. Before he could get the string over the lock nut, Voltorno arrived and presented him with thirty inches of Ergothian iron.

“Put it down,” Voltorno ordered. When Kith-Kanan hesitated, the half-human raked his sword tip over the prince’s jaw. Kith-Kanan felt the blood flow as he dropped the crossbow.

“Your friends have reverted to type,” said Voltorno with contempt. “They’ve run off and left you.”

“Good,” Kith-Kanan replied. “At least they will be safe.”

“Perhaps. You, my friend, are anything but safe.”

The eight surviving humans crowded around. Voltorno gave them a nod, and they dragged Kith-Kanan to his feet, punching and kicking him. They brought him to the far side of the clearing where they’d first come in and where they’d dropped their baggage. Voltorno produced a set of arm and leg shackles, then chained Kith-Kanan hand and foot.

*

Anaya burrowed away from the clearing, worming through the leaves like a snake. In times past, she could have done so without disturbing a single leaf on the surface. Now, to her ears, she sounded like a herd of humans. Fortunately Voltorno and his men were busy on the other side of the clearing.

When she was quite far away, she parted the leaves with her hands and crawled out. The ground was cold and wet, and Anaya shivered.

She wanted to return at once and free Kith-Kanan, but she knew she’d never trick the humans again. Not alone. She would have to wait until it was dark.

A twig snapped behind her, on her right. She kicked the leaves off her legs and faced the sound. Hugging a tree five yards away was Mackeli.

“You’re noisy,” she criticized.

“You’re deaf. I stepped on four other twigs before that last one,” he said coolly.

They met each other halfway. The hostility of the morning was gone, and they embraced.

“I’ve never seen you run like that,” she avowed.

“I surprised myself,” admitted Mackeli. “Being more grown up does appear to have advantages.”

He looked down at his sister. “I’m sorry for what I said,” he added earnestly

“You only said what I’ve thought a thousand times,” she confessed. “Now we have to think of Kith. We can go in after dark and take him —”

Mackeli took her by the shoulders and dropped to the ground, pulling her down beside him. “Shh! Not so loud, Ny. We’ve got to be smart about this. A year ago, we could have crept in and freed Kith, but now we’re too slow and loud. We have to think better.”

She scowled. “I don’t have to think to know that I will kill that Voltorno,” she insisted.

“I know, but he’s dangerous. He used magic when he fought Kith before, and he’s very clever and very cruel.”

“All right then, what should we do?”

Mackeli glanced quickly around. “Here’s what I think....”

*

When he’d finished ransacking the tree-home, Voltorno supervised his men in setting up traps around the clearing. Where the foot path had been worn in the grass, they strewed caltrops – small, spiky stars designed to stop charging horses. Against the hide leggings Anaya and Mackeli wore, they would be deadly.

In the grass around the tree, they set saw-toothed, spring-loaded traps, such as humans sometimes used to catch wolves. String triggers were strung, a pull on which would send a crossbow quarrel whizzing. Even by the last of the afternoon light the traps were hard to see. Kith-Kanan shuddered as he watched these diabolical preparations and prayed fervently that Anaya’s nose for metal had not deserted her completely.

Night fell, and the cold returned strongly enough to remind the raiders that summer wasn’t around the next sunrise. Kith-Kanan shivered in the chill while he watched Voltorno’s men wrap themselves in Anaya’s warm fur.

Voltorno brought a tin plate of stew and sat on a log in front of the prince. “I was a bit surprised to find you still here,” the half-human said. He drank beer from a tin cup. In spite of his thirst, Kith-Kanan’s nose wrinkled in disgust; it was a drink no true elf would touch. “When I returned to Daltigoth, I made inquiries about you. A Silvanesti, living in the forest like a painted savage. I heard a very strange tale in the halls of the imperial palace.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Kith-Kanan, staring at the fire built some distance in front of the hollow oak. “I don’t believe the humans would allow you into the imperial palace. Even human royalty knows better than to let street garbage into their homes.”

His face contorted in anger, Voltorno flipped a spoonful of hot stew into Kith-Kanan’s already much-abused face. The elf prince gasped and, despite his bound hands, managed to rub the scalding liquid onto the shoulder of his tunic.

“Don’t interrupt,” said Voltorno nastily. “As I was saying, I heard a strange tale. It seems that a prince of the Silvanesti, the brother of the current heir to the throne, left the city under a cloud. He bared a weapon in the hallowed Tower of the Stars or some nonsense like that.” Voltorno laughed.

“It seems the prince’s father married the son’s sweetheart to his brother,” he added.

“Sounds like a very sad story,” Kith-Kanan said, betraying as little emotion as he could. His shoulders ached from being forced to sit hunched over. He shifted his feet a bit, making the chains clatter as he did.

“It has the quality of an epic about it,” Voltorno agreed, stirring his stew. “And I thought to myself: what a prize that son would make. Imagine the ransom the elf prince’s family would pay!”

Kith-Kanan shook his head. “You are gravely mistaken if you think you can pass me off as a prince,” he said. “I am Silvanesti, yes – a warrior whose nagging wife drove him into the forest for peace and quiet.”

Voltorno laughed heartily. “Oh, yes? It’s no use, my royal friend,” he said. “I’ve seen portraits of the royal house of Silvanesti. You are this errant son.”

A shrill shriek pierced the night air. The humans reached for their arms, and Voltorno went quickly to steady his men. “Keep your eyes open,” he cautioned them, “this could be a trick to divert us.”

A flaming brand hurtled through the air, tumbling end over end and trailing sparks and embers. It hit the grass twenty feet from the tree. It tripped a trigger string, and a crossbow fired with a dull thud.

“Aahwoo!” came a wailing cry from the dark trees. The humans began to mutter among themselves.

A second flaming brand flew into the clearing, from the opposite side of the forest. Then a third, some yards from the second. And a fourth, some yards from that.

“They’re all around us!” one man cried.

“Quiet!” said Voltorno.

Carefully avoiding the wicked caltrops, he strode out on the central path. The men clustered together near him in a fighting circle facing outward from their campfire. From his staked position, Kith-Kanan smiled grimly.

A figure appeared at the end of the path, carrying a burning branch. Voltorno drew his sword. The figure stopped where the caltrops began, some four yards from the half-human. The torch Voltorno held lit Anaya’s face. Her face and hands were painted black. A single red stripe ran vertically from her forehead, along her nose, over her chin, and to the base of her neck.

Voltorno turned to his men. “You see? It’s just the girl,” he crowed. He faced Anaya. ‘Where’s the boy? Hiding?” he asked with a sneer.

“You have come into the wildwood once too often,” Anaya intoned. “None of you will leave it alive.”

“Someone shoot her,” Voltorno said in a bored tone, but the humans were mesmerized. None of them moved. Taking a slow step toward her, the commander declared, “It’s you who will die, girl.”

“Then enter the forest and find me,” she said. “You have bows and swords and iron blades. All I have is a knife of flint.”

“Yes, yes, very boring. You’d like us to flounder around in the woods at night, wouldn’t you?” remarked Voltorno, moving another step closer to her.

“It’s too late,” she warned. “One by one, you shall all die.” With that, Anaya slipped away into the night.

“Such melodrama,” grumbled the half-human, returning to the fire. “I guess one can’t expect more from a pair of savages.”

“Why didn’t you use your great magic, Voltorno?” Kith-Kanan asked sarcastically.

Quite earnestly, one of the terrified humans began to explain. “Our master must be very close to the one he —” This helpful information was abruptly cut off as Voltorno backhanded the speaker. The human fell back, his face bleeding.

Now Kith-Kanan understood. Voltorno’s repertoire of magic was probably quite limited. Perhaps he had only the spell of befuddlement he had used in his duel with Kith-Kanan. And he had to be very close to the one he wished to enchant, which was obviously why he had been sidling closer to Anaya.

The next morning Kith-Kanan awoke stiff and groggy. The chill had penetrated his bones, and his chains didn’t allow him to rest comfortably. He was trying to stretch the ache from his legs when a shriek of pure horror rang through the clearing. Kith-Kanan jerked toward the sound.

One of the human guards was staring down at the bedroll of one of his comrades. His face was bone-white and his mouth slack. He would have given vent to another scream, but Voltorno arrived at his side and shoved him away.

Voltorno’s face registered shock, too, as he looked down at the bedroll. The human who had screamed now babbled, “Master! They cut Gernian’s throat! How?”

The half-human rounded on the frantic raider and commanded him to be silent. All the humans now ringed their dead companion. Each of them asked themselves the same questions: How had Anaya and Mackeli killed the man without being seen by the watch? How had they gotten through the traps? Voltorno was rattled, and the humans were close to panic.

Chapter 19

SITHAS RETURNS

Morning, and the humans stirred half-heartedly throughout the ambassador’s large tent. Sithas heard them, their voices hoarse from sleep, talking in the cloth-walled corridor outside his room. He rose and shook the wrinkles from his clothes.

Ulvissen greeted the prince as he entered the tent’s main salon. The seneschal offered him breakfast, but Sithas took only a single apple from a bowl of fruit and forsook the rest. Humans had the habit of eating abysmally heavy meals, he knew, which probably accounted for their thick physiques.

It had stopped raining during the night, though now the wind blew steadily from the south, tearing the solid ceiling of gray clouds into ragged, fluffy pieces. From their vantage point on the hill overlooking the river, it seemed as if the broken clouds were scudding along at eye level. Flashes of early morning sun illuminated the scene as the clouds passed before it.

“Strange weather,” Ulvissen remarked as Sithas looked out over the scene.

“We seldom get snow or ice here, but these storms blow in from the southern ocean many times each winter,” explained the Silvanesti prince.

The river was alive with small craft taking advantage of the lull. Ulvissen turned up the flaps of his thick, woolen cape as he asked Sithas if river traffic was usually interrupted for the duration of the storm.

“Oh, no. The fishers and barge runners are accustomed to bad weather. Only the very worst winds will keep them tied to the dock.”

Sithas’s escort and the ambassador’s guards lined up as Ulwen and Teralind came out. The old ambassador looked even worse by daylight. His skin was sallow, with blue veins boldly visible. He moved so little that Sithas might have taken him for a corpse, were it not that his eyes blinked now and then.

The gang of servants fell to and struck the tent. While the windy air resounded with mallet strikes and the thud of falling canvas, Sithas went to the barge. The giant turtle had drawn in his head and legs during the night, and he was still asleep. Sithas rapped on the hull of the barge.

“Ferry master!” he called. “Are you there?”

The elderly elf’s head popped out over the bulwark. “Indeed I am, Highness!” He hopped up on the bulwark with a spryness that belied his advanced age. A long pry bar rested on the boatman’s shoulder, and he twirled it slightly as he went to where the chains hooking the turtle to the barge were looped over enormous iron hooks, spiked to the bow of the barge. Positioning the flat end of the pry bar under the chain links, he shouted, “Clear away All!”

The soldiers of both races perked up. Sithas, who was walking back to stand with Ulvissen, halted and spun around. The ferry master leaned on his bar, and the first chain slipped off its hook. He shouted to clear the way again and popped the other chain free. The elf prince saw that the humans were watching with rapt interest. He hoped the ferry master knew what he was doing.

The giant shackles fell against the shell of the turtle. This woke the beast, for the front hinge of its carapace, that part that closed in the giant animal’s head, opened. The huge green head slowly emerged.

The ferry master raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded a single note. The turtle’s legs came out, and he stood up. The rear of the turtle’s shell bumped the barge, and the craft began to move.

“Look sharp!” sang out the ferry master.

With rapidly increasing speed, the fifty-foot barge slid down the muddy hill. It already had a natural groove to follow – the one it had made coming up the hill the night before. Churning a wave of mud before it, the barge accelerated down the slope. The ferry master played a cavalry charge on his horn.

“Madness!” exclaimed Teralind. “Hell smash himself to bits.”

Sithas glanced over his shoulder and saw that the human woman had come forward, leaving her chair-bound husband with Ulvissen. As politeness dictated, he assuaged her fears as best he could. “It is a common thing. Do not fear, Lady, the craft is stoutly built.” He prayed to Matheri that this was indeed so.

The flat stern of the barge hit the water, throwing up a tremendous wave. Then the barge slid completely off the bank into the river, leaving a cloud of mud in the water around it.

The turtle swung around ponderously. The humans who had been dismantling the tent scattered as the great beast swung toward them. With utmost placidity the giant turned and walked down the hill. The incline and slippery mud bothered him not at all. As the ferry master commanded him with trumpet calls, the turtle slid quietly into the river and allowed the chains to be re-attached to the barge.

In another hour, the ambassador’s party was ready to board. By the time they moved down a marble-paved path to the water’s edge, the wind had slowed and died out completely.

The captain of the elven soldiers shook his head. “The lull’s ending,” he noted, resignation coloring his comment.

“More rain?” asked Ulvissen.

“And more wind,” replied Sithas.

*

The ambassador’s party made it to the island without incident. Waiting for them were three large sedan chairs and two horse-drawn wagons. Spray broke over the dock, soaking the poor porters who stood by the sedan chairs. With scant attention to protocol, the ambassador was bundled into one chair, Lady Teralind into another, and Sithas into the third. The wagons were for the baggage. Everyone else had to walk.

Sithas was surprised when he entered his private rooms in the palace. The window shutters were drawn against the rain, and waiting for him in the dim, unlit room was Hermathya.

“So you’re home,” she said with irritation. ‘Was it worth it?”

Her tone was arch, close to anger. Though he had no reason, Sithas felt his own emotions hardening, a fact that surprised him.

“It had to be done,” he said smoothly. “As it is, things turned out rather well. We showed the humans of what stuff elves are made.”

She trembled and strode past the prince to the shuttered window. Rain was seeping through the slats, pooling on the cool marble floor.

“And what are you made of?” she demanded, temper flaring.

“What do you mean? What’s the matter?”

“You risked your life for etiquette! Did you give any thought to me? What would happen to me if you had been killed?”

Sithas sighed and sat in a chair made of intertwined maple saplings. “Is that what’s bothering you? It’s unworthy of you, Thya. After all, I was in no real danger.”

“Don’t be so damned logical! You’ve no idea what I meant.” Hermathya turned to the speaker’s heir. Through clenched teeth, she said, “I’ve passed my first fertile time. It’s gone, and we missed it.”

Sithas finally understood. Even though an elven couple might live as husband and wife a thousand years, they might only be fertile three or four times in their entire lives. These times were very irregular; even the healing clerics of Quenesti Pah couldn’t predict a fertile time more than a day or two in advance.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Sithas asked, his voice softening.

“You weren’t here. You were sleeping by yourself.”

“Am I so unapproachable?”

She fingered the edge of her embroidered collar “Yes, you are.”

“You have no problem getting what you want from others,” Sithas went on heedlessly. “You collect gifts and compliments as a child picks flowers in a field. Why can’t you speak to me? I am your husband.”

“You are the elf I married,” she corrected, “not the elf I loved.”

Sithas stood quickly. “I’ve heard enough. In the future you —”

She moved toward him. “Will you listen to me for once? If you insist on risking your life on foolish errands, then you must give me a child. Our marriage can mean something then. An heir needs an heir. You want a son; I need a child.”

The prince folded his arms, annoyed at her pleading tone. That emotion confused Sithas somewhat. Why did her pleading irritate him? “Perhaps it is the wisdom of the gods that this happened,” he said. “It is not a good time to start a family.”

“How can you say that?” she asked.

“It is Matheri’s own truth. My life is not my own. I have to live for the nation. With all this trouble in the West, I may even have to take up arm for the speaker’s cause.”

Hermathya laughed bitterly. “You, a warrior? You have the wrong twin in mind. Kith-Kanan is the warrior. You are a priest.”

Coldly Sithas told her, “Kith-Kanan is not here.”

“I wish to Astarin he was! He would not have left me last night!” she said harshly.

“Enough!” Sithas went to the door. With unmatched politeness, he said, “Lady, I am truly sorry to have missed the time, but it is done and no peace will come from dwelling on lost chances.” He went out. Behind him, Hermathya dissolved in furious tears.

Sithas descended the steps, his face set hard as granite. Servants and courtiers parted for him as he went. All bowed, as was the custom, but none dared speak.

*

Two fine chairs were set up in the audience hall of the Tower of the Stars. One, short-legged and plush, was for Ehmbarth, ambassador from Thorbardin. The second was a tall piece of furniture, its elegantly wrought curves gilded. Here sat Teralind. Her husband, the titular ambassador, sat in his special chair beside her. Praetor Ulwen did not speak and after a while it was easy to forget he was even present.

Sithel sat on his throne, of course, and Sithas stood by his left hand. The rest of the floor was taken up by courtiers and servants. Ulvissen, never far from Teralind and the ambassador, hovered behind the lady’s golden chair, listening much and speaking little.

“The territory in question,” Sithel was saying, “is bordered on the south by the bend of the Kharolis River, on the west by the city of Xak Tsaroth, on the east by the Khalkist Mountains, and on the north by the region where the Vingaard River is born on the great plain. In the time of my father, this region was divided into three areas. The northernmost was named Vingaardin, the central was called Kagonesti, and the southernmost was Tsarothelm.”

Dunbarth waved a beringed hand. “Your Highness’s knowledge of geography is considerable,” he noted with exaggerated politeness, “but what is the point in your lecture?”

“As I was about to say, in the time of my father, Silvanos, these three provinces were unclaimed by any of our nations. They were ruled, and ruled poorly, by local lords who extorted taxes from the common folk and who warred constantly with each other.”

“Such is not the case today,” Teralind interjected.

“There is considerable violence in this area still,” Sithel replied, “as evidenced by the massacre of fifty of my guard by a large force of mounted men.”

Silence ensued. The elven scribes, who had been taking down every word spoken, held their styluses poised over their pages. Dunbarth looked at Teralind curiously.

“You do not object, Lady, to the speaker’s description of the marauders as ‘men’?”’ he asked pointedly, leaning forward on one elbow.

She shrugged her green velvet clad shoulders, and Ulvissen sidled closer to the back of her chair.

“The emperor does not rule the entire race of men,” she allowed. Sithas could almost hear the unspoken yet at the end of Teralind’s statements “any more than the king of Thorbardin rules all dwarves. I don’t know who these bandits are, but if they are men, they are not men of Ergoth.”

“Certainly not,” Sithel continued smoothly. “You will not deny, though, that the emperor has done nothing to discourage the large number of human settlers who cross the plain and descend the rivers by boat and raft. They are displacing both the Kagonesti and those Silvanesti who have moved west to live. It must stop.”

“There is not room enough in Ergoth for everyone to live and work, nor is there land enough to grow the food needed to feed them all,” countered Teralind. “Why is it strange that human settlers should leave the boundaries of the empire and wander east into the region claimed by the Silvanesti, when that region is so sparsely settled?”

“None have tried to settle in Thorbardin,” said Dunbarth unhelpfully.

Prince Sithas gestured to a scribe, who brought him a parchment scroll filled with tiny, precise writing. Two large wax seals were affixed to the bottom of the paper. “This is our copy of the agreement made between Speaker Sithel and Emperor Tion, dated four hundred years ago. It specifically forbids Ergoth from colonizing Vingaardin without the approval of the Speaker of the Stars.”

“Emperor Tion was an old man. Many of the works done by him late in his life were faulty,” Teralind commented tactlessly. Ulvissen, who’d been stroking his auburn beard in thought, leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded and continued, “No less than six of Tion’s treaties have been repudiated over the years since his death. The treaty Prince Sithas holds is therefore of doubtful standing.” At her side, the aged praetor stirred vaguely. Teralind paid no attention.

Dunbarth slid forward and dropped out of his chair. He tugged his tunic down smoothly over his barrel chest and said, “As I recall, it was Tion’s plan to invade and conquer Sancrist, but he feared the elven nation would retaliate against his eastern border. For that reason he struck a deal with Speaker Sithel.”

The prince had returned the parchment to the scribe. Curious, he asked, “And why did the invasion of Sancrist not take place?”

Dunbarth laughed merrily. “The Ergothian generals pointed out how difficult it would be to rule an island full of gnomes. The drain on the empire’s treasury would have been enormous!” Some scattered laughter drifted through the hall. Sithel rapped on the floor with his five-foot-long regal staff, and the snickering died.

“I believe what you say, Lady Teralind,” Sithel noted blandly. “His Majesty Tion must have been distracted to imagine he could conquer and rule the gnomes, though he did not really seem so when I met him.” Teralind flushed slightly at this reminder of the speaker’s great life span.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that human settlers and human bandits have been taking life and land away from my subjects.”

“If I may say something,” Dunbarth interrupted, walking around the side of his chair. “Many people come to Thorbardin to buy our metals, and we have heard a great deal about the troubles on the Plain. I think it is unfair to say, Your Highness, that it is simply a matter of humans pushing elves out. I understand that many of the bandits are elves themselves, of the Kagonesti race.” He rubbed the broad toe of his left boot against the trousers of his right leg to remove a smudge on the brilliant shine. “And some of the bandits are half-elves.”

Although this statement was of no surprise to Sithel or Sithas, it was a revelation that set the crowd of servants and retainers to buzzing. Sithas turned his back on the hall and spoke to his father in guarded tones. “What is the matter with that fellow? He acts as if he were the advocate for Ergoth!” Sithas muttered.

“Don’t blame Dunbarth. He knows his country will gain the advantage if we and the humans cannot agree. He’s thrown out this rubbish about half-humans to muddy the water. It means nothing,” Sithel commented wisely.

The prince stood aside, and his father rapped for silence once more.

“Let us not confuse matters with talk of bandits and halfbreeds,” Sithel said genially. “There really is only one question – who rules these three provinces?”

“Who rules them in fact, or rules them by a signet pressed to a dollop of molten wax?” Teralind said testily.

“We must have law, Lady, or we shall be nothing but bandits ourselves,” counseled Dunbarth. He smiled behind his curled silver beard. “Well-dressed, rich bandits, but bandits nevertheless.” More laughter. This time Sithel let the laughter build, for it diffused the tension in the tower.

“There is no doubt the Speaker of the Stars bears an ancient claim to the land,” Dunbarth continued, “or that Ergoth has certain rights where so many of its subjects are concerned.”

Sithas lifted his eyebrows at this statement. “Subjects?” he asked quickly. “Are the humans living in the three provinces subjects, therefore, of the emperor of Ergoth?”

“Well, of course,” conceded Teralind. Ulvissen leaned forward to speak to her, but she waved him away. The lady looked perplexed as she realized belatedly that she had contradicted her earlier statement that the bandits were not Ergothians. “What I mean to say is —”

Ulvissen tapped urgently on her shoulder. Teralind turned and snapped, “Stand back, sir! Do not interrupt me!” The seneschal instantly retreated a pace and stood rigidly at attention.

Sithas exchanged a glance with his father, and murmurs arose in the hall. Teralind’s eyes darted around, for she knew she’d made a dangerous admission. She tried to salvage the situation by saying, “There is not a man, woman, or human child in the whole realm of Ansalon who does not owe allegiance to His Imperial Majesty.”

Sithel did not try to speak until the murmuring had subsided. In precise, measured tones, he finally said, “Is it your intention to annex our lands?”

Teralind pushed herself back in her chair and frowned. Beside her, the frail form of Proctor Ulwen moved. He leaned forward slightly and began to shake. Tremors racked his frail body, and Ulvissen moved swiftly to his side. The seneschal snapped his fingers at the human contingent of servants loitering by the grand doors.

“Highness, noble ambassadors, I beg your pardon, but the praetor is seized with an attack,” he announced in an anxious voice. “He must withdraw.”

Dunbarth spread his hands graciously. Sithel stood. “You have our leave to withdraw,” the speaker said. “Shall I send one of our healers to the praetor’s rooms?”

Teralind’s head lifted regally. “We have a doctor of our own, thank you, noble speaker.”

The porters took hold of the rails attached to Ulwen’s chair and hoisted him up. The Ergothian delegation filed out behind him. When they were gone, Dunbarth bowed and led his dwarves out. Sithel dismissed his retainers and was finally alone with his son in the tower.

“Diplomacy is so tiring,” the speaker said wearily. He stood and laid his silver scepter across the throne. “Give me your arm, Sith. I believe I need to rest for a while.”

*

Tamanier Ambrodel walked beside Lady Nirakina through the palace. They had just come from the guild hall of the stone workers, where Lady Nirakina had viewed the plans for the new Market. It was an orderly, beautifully designed place, but its site and purpose depressed her. “It’s simply

wrong,” she told Tamanier. “We are the firstborn race of the world and favored by the gods. As such, it is only right we share our grace with other people, not look upon them as lesser beings.”

Tamanier nodded. “I heartily agree, Lady. When I lived in the wilderness, I saw many kinds of people-Silvanesti, Kagonesti, humans, dwarves, gnomes, kender-and no one lived better than his neighbor for any reason but his own hard work. The land doesn’t care if it’s plowed by human or elf. The rain falls the same on every farm.”

They arrived at the door of Nirakina’s private rooms. Before he left, Tamanier informed her, “I went to see Miritelisina, as you requested.”

“Is she well?” she asked eagerly. “A priestess of such age and wisdom should not be held in a common dungeon.”

“She is well,” Tamanier said, “though unrepentant. She still does not admit to her crime.”

“I do not believe she committed a crime,” Nirakina said with fervor. “Miritelisina was moved by compassion. She only sought to warn the poor refugees of the plan to move them. I’m certain she had no idea they’d riot as they did.”

Tamanier bowed. “I bear the holy lady no ill will. I tell you, though, that she will not repent-even to gain her freedom. Miritelisina believes that by remaining in prison, she will inspire others who want to help the refugees.”

Nirakina gave the young courtier’s arm a squeeze. “And what do you think, Tam? Whose cause do you favor?”

“Do you really have to ask? A short time ago, I was one of the poor wretches-homeless, penniless, despised. They deserve the speaker’s protection.”

“We’ll have to see what we can do to win it,” Nirakina replied warmly.

She went into her rooms, and Tamanier walked away, his step light. With the speaker’s wife fighting for them, the homeless settlers would soon feel the grace of Sithel’s favor. And who knew, perhaps Miritelisina would be freed to resume her good works for the poor.

He left the central tower of the palace and strolled the empty corridor balcony of the east wing.

Suddenly he heard voices. Foreign voices. He’d lived among humans long enough to know their speech.

“— play at this silly game?” complained a woman’s voice, tight with emotion.

“As long as necessary. It’s the emperor’s will,” a man’s strong voice answered.

“The things I do for my father! I hope he appreciates it!”

“He’s paying off your gambling debts, isn’t he?” said the man dryly.

Tamanier knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he was intrigued. He stood very still. Since the humans were in the corridor below him, their voices carried easily to him up the central atrium.

“I don’t trust that Dunbarth,” asserted the woman. “He switches sides like a click beetle.”

“He has no side but his own. Right now Thorbardin isn’t ready for war, so he hopes to play us off against the elves. He’s clever, but I see what he’s doing.”

“He annoys me. So does Prince Sithas. How he stares! They say elves have second sight.” The woman’s voice rose. “You don’t think he’s reading my mind, do you?”

“Calm yourself,” said the man. “I don’t think he can. But if it troubles you, I’ll speak to our friend about it.”

Footsteps echoed on the balcony across the atrium from where Tamanier stood. He tensed, ready to be discovered. The voices below ceased their furtive talk.

Out of the afternoon shadows on the far side of the balcony Tamanier spied the young priest of the Blue Phoenix, Kamin Oluvai. Tamanier was surprised; why was the priest here? Kamin didn’t see him, however, so Tamanier withdrew from the balcony rail. The humans he’d heard were certainly Lady Teralind and Ulvissen, but what did their strange conversation mean?

Court intrigue was foreign to him. Who was Teralind really? What was she concealing? Who was the “friend” Ulvissen referred to? Could it be the traitor of which Speaker Sithel had spoken that night at dinner?

Tamanier hurried away. He had to tell someone, and Sithas’s room was nearby. The courtier was already feeling slightly relieved; certainly the prince would know what to do.

Chapter 20

DAY OF METAMORPHOSIS

The humans were breaking camp and getting ready to return to their ship. They worked with haste, and it was clear to Kith-Kanan that they wanted nothing more than to be away from such an accursed place. While they worked, Voltorno went to the elf prince. He had his men pry the stake out of the ground, then he grabbed Kith-Kanan’s shackles and dragged him to the edge of the clearing.

“You out there! Woman and boy! I have your friend here! If any more of my men are so much as scratched, I’ll make your royal friend suffer for it. I’ll give him something more than a scar on his cheek. How do you think he’d look without an arm, a hand, or a leg? Do you hear me?”

The only answer was the soft sighing of wind in the still bare branches.

“We’re ready to go, master,” said one of the humans.

“Then get moving, dolt.’ Voltorno was losing his air of confidence. Despite his aching limbs and the stinging sword cut on his cheek, Kith-Kanan was pleased. The angrier Voltorno got, the greater advantage Anaya and Mackeli would have.

The raiders marched down the path single file, with Kith-Kanan leading. Voltorno gave the prince over to one of his men and moved out ahead as the band left the path and entered the woods.

They snaked silently through the forest. In spite of their master’s assurances, the men adopted a crouching walk, swinging their loaded bows slowly from side to side. Their fear was palpable, like a foul odor.

As they reached the old, deep forest, the trees got larger and farther apart. The raiders moved more quickly, using the trail they’d made on their way to the clearing. Occasionally Voltorno scanned the high tree branches, alert to any ambush from above. This added greatly to the alarm of his men. They started glancing up frequently, stumbling and bumping into each other.

Disgusted, Voltorno turned on them. “You make more noise than a pen of squealing pigs!” he hissed.

“And you don’t breathe correctly either,” Kith-Kanan put in.

Voltorno gave him a venomous glance and turned to resume the march. Just then, a loud cracking sound filled the air. The men stood, paralyzed, trying to find the source of the noise. A tree branch broke off a nearby oak and dropped to the ground ahead. The men started laughing with relief.

Behind them, a figure popped up out of the leaves and aimed a stolen crossbow at the back of the last man in line. The quarrel loosed, the dark figure slipped silently back into the bed of leaves. The wounded man made a gurgling sound, staggered forward a few steps, and collapsed.

“It’s Favius! He’s been shot!”

“Mind your front! Look for your target before you shoot!” Voltorno barked. The six men remaining formed a ring with Kith-Kanan in the center. Voltorno walked slowly around the ring, staring hard at the empty woods. There was nothing and no one to be seen.

He halted when he noticed one of his men holding an empty bow. “Meldren,” he said glacially, “why is your bow not loaded?”

The man named Meldren looked at his weapon in surprise. “I must have triggered it off,” he muttered.

“Yes, into Favius’s back!”

“No, master! Favius was behind me!”

“Don’t lie to me!” Fiercely Voltorno struck the man with the flat of his sword. Meldren dropped his crossbow and fell to the ground. None of the other men offered to help him or supported his story.

Voltorno picked up the man’s crossbow and handed it to another of his company. “Weldren will walk in the rear,” he ordered. “With any luck, the witch will kill him next.”

The raiders relieved the dead man of his weapons and gear and moved on. The wretched Meldren, with only a short sword for defense, brought up the rear.

The trail they followed led them down a draw, between a pair of giant oaks. Voltorno went down on one knee and held up his hand to halt the group. He studied the ground and then looked ahead. “This has the look of a trap,” he said with a wise air. “We’ll not go through the draw. Four of you men go along the right edge. The rest follow me on the left.”

The draw was a V-shaped ditch, twenty feet wide and eight feet deep at its lowest point. Four men crept along the right rim of the gully while Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and two others walked along the left. As the half-human circled around, he clucked his tongue triumphantly.

“See?” he said. Leaning against an oak on the left was a thick log, poised to roll down into the draw if anyone disturbed the web of vines attached to it. This web extended down into the draw and covered the ground there. The men on the right came around their oak. Voltorno waved to them. The lead man waved back-and the ground beneath him gave way.

The “ground” they’d been standing on was nothing but a large log, covered loosely with dirt and leaves. Held in place by slender windfall limbs, the log collapsed under the men’s weight. With shouts and cries for help, the four tumbled into the gully.

“No!” Voltorno shouted.

The men received only bruises and cuts from falling the eight feet into the ravine, but they rolled onto the mat of vines that was the trigger for the six-foot-thick log poised on the left bank. The vines snapped taut, the log rolled down, and the men were crushed beneath it. Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and the remaining two raiders could only stand by and watch as this occurred.

Suddenly there was a whirring sound and a thump. One of the two humans dropped, a crossbow quarrel in his back. The last human gave a shriek. He flung down his weapon and ran off into the woods, screaming without letup. Voltorno shouted for him to come back, but the hysterical raider disappeared into the trees.

“It appears you’re on your own, Voltorno,” Kith-Kanan said triumphantly.

The half-human seized the prince and held him in front of his body like a shield. “I’ll kill him, witch!” he screamed into the trees. He turned from side to side, searching madly for Anaya or Mackeli. “I swear I will kill him!”

“You won’t live that long,” a voice uttered behind him.

In shock, the half-human whirled. Anaya, still painted sooty black, stood nonchalantly before him, just out of sword’s reach. Mackeli was behind her, his bow poised. Taking advantage of his captor’s obvious shock at seeing these two foes so close by, Kith-Kanan wrenched himself from Voltorno’s grasp and jumped away from him.

“Shoot her!” Voltorno cried dazedly. “Shoot her, men!”

Remembering belatedly that he had no one left to command, the half-human lunged at Anaya. Mackeli started to react, but the keeper shouted, “No, he’s mine!”

Despite his wife’s shouted claim, Kith-Kanan slogged forward under the burden of his chains. The prince was certain that Anaya didn’t have a chance against a fine duelist like Voltorno. Her agility was drastically reduced, and the only weapon she carried was her flint knife.

The half-human thrust at her twice, then a third time. She dodged, adequately but without her old preternatural grace. He cut and slashed the air, and as Anaya scampered aside, the Ergothian blade bit into a tree. She ducked under Voltorno’s reach and jabbed at his stomach. The half-human brought the sword’s hilt down on her head. With a grunt of pain, Anaya sprawled on her face.

“Shoot!” Kith-Kanan cried. As Mackeli’s finger closed on the trigger bar, Anaya rolled away from Voltorno’s killing strike and repeated her warning to her friends.

“Only I may shed his blood!” she declared.

Voltorno laughed in response, but it was a laugh shrill with desperation.

Anaya got to her feet clumsily and stumbled in the thick leaves and fallen branches. As best she could, she jerked back, out of the way of Voltorno’s sweeping slash, but she could not avoid the straight thrust that followed. Mackeli’s green eyes widened in shock and he uttered a strangled cry as the blade pierced Anaya’s brown deerskin tunic.

Though he saw what happened, Kith-Kanan was more shocked by what he heard-a roaring In his ears. For a moment, he didn’t know what he was hearing. Then he realized that the sound was Anaya’s pulse. It hammered at the prince like thunder, and he felt as if he would collapse from the pain of it. Time seemed to slow for Kith-Kanan as he watched Anaya. His beloved’s face showed no pain, only an unshakable determination.

Voltorno’s lips widened in a smile. Though he would surely die himself, at least he’d killed the witch. That smile froze as Anaya grasped the sword that pierced her stomach and rammed it farther in. His fingers still locked around the handle, the half-human was jerked toward her. His puzzlement turned to horror as Anaya brought up her free hand and drove her flint knife into his heart.

Valtorno collapsed. So tightly did he grip the sword that, when he fell backward, he pulled it from Anaya’s body. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Kith-Kanan struggled to Anaya’s side and caught her as she collapsed. “Anaya,” the prince said desperately. The front of her tunic was covered in blood. “Anaya, please....”

“Take me home,” she said and fainted.

Mackeli found the key to Kith-Kanan’s shackles in Voltorno’s belt pouch. Freed of his bonds, the prince lifted Anaya in his arms. Mackeli offered to help.

“No, I have her,” Kith-Kanan said brokenly. “She weighs nothing.”

He strode away from the gully, past the places where Voltorno’s men had died. Inside, Kith-Kanan concentrated on the sound and sensation of Anaya’s heartbeat. It was there. Slow, labored, but it was there. He walked faster. At home there would be medicines. Mackeli knew things. He knew about roots and poultices. At the hollow tree there would be medicines.

“You have to live, “he told Anaya, staring straight ahead. “By Astarin, you have to live! We’ve not had enough time together!”

The sun flickered through the leafless trees as they hurried toward the clearing. By now Kith-Kanan was almost running. Anaya was strong, he repeated over and over in his mind. Mackeli would be able to save her.

In the clearing, Arcuballis reared up on its hinds legs and spread its wings in greeting. The beast had returned from hunting to find everyone gone. Kith-Kanan paid it no heed as he rushed toward Anaya’s home-their home.

The prince ran to the hollow tree and laid Anaya on a silver wolf pelt that Mackeli had dragged outside. Her eyes were closed and her skin was ice cold. Kith-Kanan felt for a pulse. There was none.

“Do something!” he screamed at Mackeli. The boy stared at Anaya, his mouth open. Kith-Kanan grabbed the front of his tunic. “Do something, I said!”

“I don’t know anything!”

“You know about roots and herbs!” he begged.

“Ny is dead, Kith. I cannot call her back to life. I wish I could, but I can’t!”

When the prince saw the tears in Mackeli’s eyes, he knew that the boy spoke the truth. Kith-Kanan let go of Mackeli’s tunic and rocked back on his heels, staring down at the still form of Anaya. Anaya.

Rage and anguish boiled up inside the prince. His sword lay on the ground by the tree, where Voltorno had found and discarded it. Kith-Kanan picked up the blade and stared at it. The halfhuman had murdered his wife, and he had done nothing. He’d let Voltorno murder his wife and child-to-be.

Kith-Kanan screamed-a horrible, deep, wrenching cry-then slammed the flat of the blade against the oak tree. The cold iron snapped five inches above the hilt. In anger he threw the sword hilt as far as he could.

*

Night. Mackeli and Kith-Kanan sat inside the tree, not moving, not talking. They had covered Anaya with her favorite blanket, one made from the pelts of a dozen rabbits. Now they sat in darkness. The broken blade of his sword lay across Kith-Kanan’s lap.

He was cursed. He felt it in his heart. Love always eluded him. First Hermathya had been taken away. So be it. He had found a better life and a better wife than Hermathya would ever have been. His life had just begun again. And now it had ended. Anaya was dead. Their unborn child was dead. He was cursed.

A gust of wind blew in the open door, sweeping leaves and dust in tiny whirlwinds around Mackeli’s ankles. He sat with his head on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. The shriveled brown oak leaves were lifted from the ground and spun around. He followed their dancing path toward the doorway, and his eyes widened.

The green glow that filled the open entrance to the hollow tree transfixed Mackeli. It washed his face and silver hair.

“Kith,” he murmured. “Look.”

“What is it?” the prince asked tiredly. He looked toward the doorway, and a frown creased his forehead. Then, throwing the mantle off his shoulders, he got up. With a hand on the door edge, Kith-Kanan looked outside. The soft mound that was Anaya beneath her blanket was the source of the strange green light. The Silvanesti prince stepped outside. Mackeli followed.

The light was cool as Kith-Kanan knelt by Anaya’s body and slowly pulled the rabbit-fur blanket back. It was Anaya herself that was glowing.

Her emerald eyes sprang open.

With a strangled cry, Kith-Kanan fell back. Anaya sat up. The strong light diminished, leaving only a mild verdant aura surrounding the elf woman. She was green from hair to toes.

“Y – You’re alive!” he stuttered.

“No,” Anaya said sadly. She stood, and he did likewise. “This is part of the change. This was meant to happen. All the animal life has left me, and now, Kith, I am becoming one with the forest.”

“I don’t understand.” To speak with his wife when he’d all but resigned himself to never seeing her again brought Kith-Kanan great joy. But her manner, the tone of her words, frightened him more than her death. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

The green Anaya put a hand to his cheek. It was cool and gentle. She smiled at him, and a lump grew in his throat. “This happened to the other keepers. When their time was done, they became one with the forest, too. I am dead, dear Kith, but I will be here for thousands of years. I am joining the wildwood.”

Kith-Kanan took her in his arms. “What about us? Is this what you want?” he asked, and fear made his voice harsh.

“I love you, Kith” Anaya said passionately, “but I am content now. This is my destiny. I am glad I was able to explain it to you.” She pulled free of his embrace and walked off a few yards.

“I have always liked this spot in the clearing. It is a good place”, she said with satisfaction.

“Good-bye, Ny!” Mackeli called tearfully. “You were a good sister!”

“Good-bye, Keli. Live well.”

Kith-Kanan rushed to her. He couldn’t accept this. It was all too strange. It was happening too quickly! He tried to take Anaya in his arms once more, but her feet were fixed to the ground.

Her eyes rebuked him gently as she said consolingly, “Don’t fight it, Kith.” Her voice becoming faint, the keeper added, “It is right.”

“What of our child?” he asked desperately.

Anaya placed a hand on her belly. “He is there still. He was not part of the plan. A long, long time from now he will be born... “The light slowly dwindled in her eyes. “Farewell, my love.”

Kith-Kanan held Anaya’s face between his hands and kissed her. For a moment only, her lips had the yielding quality of flesh. Then a firmness crept in. The elf prince pulled back and, even as he touched her face for the last time, Anaya’s features slowly vanished. What had been skin roughened into bark. By the time Kith-Kanan spoke her name once more, Anaya had found her destiny. At the clearing’s edge, the prince of the Silvanesti was embracing a fine young oak tree.

Chapter 21

SILVANOST,
YEAR OF THE RAM

For a month the ambassadors met with the Speaker of the Stars, yet nothing was accomplished. Nothing, except that Speaker Sithel fell ill. His health had been deteriorating over the preceding weeks, and the strain of the conference had sapped his strength to the point that by the morning of the twenty-ninth day, he could not even rise from his bed. Sickness was so rare for the speaker that a mild panic gripped the palace. Servants dashed about, conversing in whispers. Nirakina summoned Sithas and Hermathya to the speaker’s bedside. So grave was her tone, Sithas half-expected to find his father on the verge of death.

Standing now at the foot of his father’s bed, the prince could see that Sithel was wan and dispirited. Nirakina sat beside her ailing husband, holding a damp cloth to his head. Hermathya hovered in the background, obviously uncomfortable in the presence of illness.

“Let me call a healer,” Nirakina insisted.

“It’s not necessary,” Sithel said testily. “I just need some rest.”

“You have a fever!”

“I do not! Well, if I do, do you think I want it known that the Speaker of the Stars is so feeble he needs a healer to get well? What sort of message do you suppose that sends to our people? Or to the foreign emissaries?” This short speech left him winded, and he breathed heavily, his face pale against the cream-colored pillows.

“Regarding the ambassadors, what shall I tell them?” Sithas asked. “If you cannot attend the conference today —”

“Tell them to soak their heads,” Sithel muttered. “That devious dwarf and that contentious human female.” His words subsided.

“Now, husband, that’s no way to talk,” Nirakina said agreeably. “There’s no stigma to being ill, you know. You’d get well a lot sooner if a healer treated you.”

“I’ll heal myself, thank you.”

“You may lie here for weeks, fevered, ill-tempered —”

“I am not ill-tempered!” Sithel shouted.

Nirakina rose from the bed purposefully. To Sithas she directed her questions. “Who can we get? Who is the best healer in Silvanost?”

From the far wall, Hermathya uttered one word: “Miritelisina.”

“Impossible,” the prince said quickly, looking at his wife with reproach. “She is in prison, as you well know, Lady.”

“Oh, tosh,” responded his mother. “If the speaker wants the best healer, he can order her release.” Neither father nor son spoke or showed any sign of heeding Nirakina’s counsel. “Miritelisina is high priestess of Quenesti Pah. No one else in Silvanost can come near her expertise in the healing art.” She appealed to Sithas. “She’s been in prison more than six months. Surely that’s punishment enough for a moment’s indiscretion?”

Sithel coughed, a loud, racking paroxysm that nearly doubled him over in bed. “It’s the old delta fever,” he gasped. “It’s known to recur.”

“Delta fever?” asked Sithas.

“A legacy of misspent youth,” the speaker said weakly. When he sat up in bed, Nirakina gave him a cup of cool water to sip. “I used to hunt in the marshes at the mouth of the Thon-Thalas when I was young. I caught delta fever then.”

Nirakina looked up at Sithas. “That was more than two hundred years before you were born,” she said reassuringly. “He’s had other, milder attacks.”

“Father, send for the priestess,” Sithas decided gravely. The speaker raised his brows questioningly. “The negotiations with the dwarves and humans must go ahead, and only a strong, healthy speaker can see that justice is done.”

“Sithas is right,” Nirakina agreed. She pressed her small hand to Sithel’s burning cheek. “Send for Miritelisina.” The speaker sighed, the dry, rattling sound rising from his fevered throat. “Very well,” he said softly. “Let it be done.”

*

Later that morning came a knock at the door. Nirakina called for the person to enter. Tamanier came in, looking downcast.

“Great speaker, I spoke with Miritelisina,” he said abjectly.

“Where is she?” asked Sithas sharply.

“She-she refuses to come, my prince.”

“What?” said Sithas.

“What?” echoed Nirakina.

“She will not come to Your Highness, nor will she accept pardon from prison,” Tamanier announced, shaking his head.

“Has she gone mad?” demanded Sithas.

“No, sire. Miritelisina believes her suffering in prison will bring the plight of the homeless ones to the attention of all.”

In spite of his weakness, the speaker began to laugh softly. “What a character!” he said. The laughter threatened to turn into coughing, so he checked himself.

“It’s extortion,” Sithas said angrily. “She means to dictate her own terms!”

“Never mind, son. Tamanier, have the door of Miritelisina’s cell left open. Tell the warders to bring her neither food nor water. When she gets hungry enough, she’ll leave.”

“What will you do if she doesn’t come?” Nirakina asked, bewildered.

“I shall survive,” he replied. “Now, all of you go. I wish to rest.”

Tamanier went on his errand. Sithas and Nirakina drifted out, looking back frequently at the speaker. Sithas marveled at how small and weak his father looked in the great bed.

Alone, Sithel sat up slowly. His head pounded, but after a moment it cleared. He put his feet on the floor, and the cool marble soothed him. He stood and moved carefully to a window. The whole of Silvanost spread out below him. How he loved it! Not the city, which was just a collection of buildings, but the people, the daily rhythm of life that made Silvanost a living place.

A rainstorm had ended the day before, leaving the air crystal clean with a bite of cold. High, lacy clouds stretched from the horizon to mid-sky, like delicate fingers reaching up to the abode of the gods.

All of a sudden Sithel gave a shudder. The white clouds and shining towers reeled before him. He clutched the curtains for support, but strength faded from his hands and he lost his grip. Knees buckling, he slid to the floor. No one was around to see him fall. Sithel lay still on the marble floor, warmed by a patch of sunshine.

*

Sithas walked the palace halls, looking for Hermathya. He saw that she had not stayed with the speaker, so fearful was she of catching his illness. Some sort of intuition drew him up the tower stairs to the floor where his old bachelor room was. To his surprise, the prince found his devotional candle lit and a fresh red rose, sacred to Matheri, lying on the table by his bachelor bed. He had no idea who had left it. Hermathya had no reason to come here.

The sight of the rose and candle soothed his worried mind somewhat. He knelt by the table and began to meditate. At last he prayed to Matheri for his father’s recovery and for more understanding in dealing with Hermathya.

Time passed. How much, he didn’t know. A tapping sound filled the small chamber. Sithas ignored it. It grew louder. He raised his head and looked around for the source of the intrusive noise. He saw his seldom-worn sword, the twin of Kith-Kanan’s weapon, hanging in its scabbard from a peg on the wall. The sword was vibrating inside its brass-bound sheath, causing the tapping noise.

Sithas rose and went to the weapon. He looked on in amazement as the length of iron shook itself like a trembling dog. He put out his hand, grasping the sword’s hilt to try and still the vibrations.

The shivering climbed Sithas’s arm, penetrating his body and sending tingles up his arm. He took the sword hilt in both hands-

In a flash the speaker’s heir had a sudden, clear impression of his twin brother. Great rage, great anguish, heartache, a mortal blow-

A loud crack smote his ears, and the sword ceased vibrating. Slightly dazed, Sithas, drew the blade out. It was broken cleanly, about five inches above the hilt.

Fear seized him. Fear for Kith-Kanan. He had no idea how he knew, but as he held the stump of the sword, Sithas knew without a doubt that Kith was in grave danger, perhaps even near death. He had to tell someone-his father, his mother. Sithas rushed to the dark oaken door of his old room and flung it open. He was startled to find someone standing just outside, shadowed by the massive overhang of the stone arch over the door.

“Who are you?” Sithas demanded, presenting the foreshortened sword. The figure seemed ominous somehow.

“Your sword is broken,” said the stranger soothingly. “Be at peace, noble prince. I mean you no harm.”

The stranger stepped forward into the pale light emanating from Sithas’s candle, still burning on the table. He wore a nondescript gray robe. A hood covered his head. The air around him throbbed with an aura of power. Sithas felt it, like heat on his face from a nearby fire.

“Who are you?” the prince repeated with great deliberation. The oddly menacing figure reached up with slim pink fingers to throw back the hood. Beneath the soft gray material, his face was round and good-natured. He was nearly bald; only a fringe of mouse-brown hair covered the sides of his head. His ears were small and tapered.

“Do I know you?” Sithas asked. He relaxed a bit, for the stranger looked like nothing more than a beggarly cleric.

“At a royal dinner some time ago, you met an elf with long blond hair who introduced himself as Kamin Oluvai, second priest of the Blue Phoenix. That was me.” The strange elf seemed pleased with Sithas’s evident surprise.

“You’re Kamin Oluvai? You look nothing like him,” said the puzzled prince.

“A simple disguise.” He shrugged. “But in truth, Kamin Oluvai is another of my masks. My real name is Vedvedsica, and I am at Your Highness’s service.” He bowed low.

It was a northern name, such as Silvanesti used in regions near Istar. Such elves were reputed to be deeply involved in sorcery. Sithas watched Kamin Oluvai-or was it Vedvedsica?-warily.

“I’m very busy,” the prince said abruptly. “What do you want?”

“I came in answer to a call, great prince. For some years I have been of use to your noble father, helping him in certain discreet matters. The speaker is ill, is he not?”

“A seasonal chill,” said Sithas stiffly. “Speak plainly and tell me what you want, or else get out of my way.”

“The speaker requires a healer to dispel his delta fever.” Sithas could not hide his surprise at the fact that Vedvedsica knew the nature of his father’s illness. “I have treated the speaker before, banishing the fever. I can do so again.”

“You are not a priest of Quenesti Pah. Who do you serve?”

Vedvedsica smiled and stepped farther into the small room. Sithas automatically backed away, maintaining the distance between them. “Your Highness is an elf of great erudition and education. You know the unfairness of Silvanesti law, which only allows the worship of —”

“Who do you serve?” Sithas repeated sharply.

The gray-robed elf dropped his reticence. “My master is Gilean, the Gray Voyager.”

Sithas tossed the broken end of his sword on the table. His concern was eased. Gilean was a god of Neutrality, not Evil. His worship was not officially recognized in Silvanost, but it wasn’t actively suppressed either.

“My father has consulted with you?” he asked skeptically.

“Frequently.” Vedvedsica’s face took on a crafty expression, as if he were privy to things even the speaker’s heir did not know.

“If you can cure my father, why did you come to me?” wondered Sithas.

“The speaker is an old, noble prince. Today he is ill. Someday, when he is gone, you will be speaker. I wish to continue my relationship with House Royal,” he said, picking his words carefully.

Anger colored Sithas’s face. He snatched up the broken sword and held the squared-off edge to the sorcerer’s throat. His relationship with House Royal indeed! Vedvedsica held his ground, though he tilted his round head away from the blade.

“You speak treason,” Sithas said coldly. “You insult me and my family. I will see you in chains in the lowest reaches of the palace dungeons, gray cleric!”

Vedvedsica’s pale gray eyes bored into Sithas’s furious face. “You wish to have your twin brother home, do you not?” the cleric asked insinuatingly.

The broken sword remained at Vedvedsica’s throat, but Sithas’s interest was piqued. He frowned.

The sorcerer sensed his hesitation. “I can find him, great prince.” Stated Vedvedsica firmly. “I can help you.”

Sithas remembered the terrible feelings that had swept over him when he’d first grasped the vibrating sword. So much pain and rage. Wherever Kith was, he was in definite trouble.

“How would you do it?” asked the prince, almost too faintly to be heard.

“A simple act,” noted the cleric. His gaze flickered down to the blade.

“I’ll not break the law. No invocations to Gilean.” Said the prince harshly, “Of course not, Highness. You yourself will do all that needs to be done.”

Sithas bade him explain, but Vedvedsica’s eyes traveled once more to the blade at his throat. “If you please, Highness-?” Sithas swung the weapon away. The sorcerer swallowed audibly, then continued. “There is in all of us who share the blood of Astarin the ability to reach out to the ones we love, across great distances, and summon them to us.”

“I know of what you speak,” said Sithas. “But the Call has been forbidden to Kith-Kanan. I cannot break the speaker’s edict.”

“Ah,” said the sorcerer with a wry smile. “But the speaker has need of my services to heal his fever. Perhaps I can strike a bargain!”

Sithas was growing weary of this fellow’s impudence. Striking bargains with the speaker indeed! But if there was the slightest hope of getting Kith back-and healing his father-

Vedvedsica remained silent, sensing his best hope lay in letting Sithas come to a decision of his own accord.

“What must I do to call Kith-Kanan home?” Sithas asked finally.

“If you have some object that is strongly identified with your brother, that will help your concentration. It can be a focus for your thoughts.”

After a long, tense silence, Sithas spoke. “I will take you to my father,” he said. He brought the broken sword up once more to the cleric’s throat. “But if anything you have told me is false, I shall turn you over to the Clerical Court Council for trial as a charlatan. You know what they do to illicit sorcerers?” Vedvedsica waved a hand casually. “Very well. Come!”

As Sithas opened the door, Vedvedsica caught his arm. The prince stared furiously at the cleric’s hand until Vedvedsica deigned to remove it. “I cannot walk the halls of the palace in plain sight, great prince,” the cleric said mysteriously. “Discretion is necessary for someone like myself.” He took a small bottle from his sash and pulled the cork. An acrid smell flooded the small room. “If you will allow me to use this unguent. When warmed by the skin, it creates a fog of uncertainty around those who wear it. No one we pass will be certain they see or hear us.”

Sithas felt he had no choice. Vedvedsica applied the reddish oil to his fingers and traced a magic sigil on Sithas’s forehead. He did the same to himself. The unguent left a burning sensation on Sithas’s skin. He had an intense desire to wipe the poisonous-smelling stuff off, but as the gray-clad cleric displayed no discomfort, the prince mastered the impulse.

“Follow me,” advised Vedvedsica. At least that’s what Sithas thought he said. The words came to his ear distantly, waveringly, as if the cleric spoke from the bottom of a well.

They ascended the steps, passing a trio of handmaids on the way. The elf girls’ forms were indistinct to Sithas, though the background of stair and wall was solid and clear. The maids’ eyes flickered over the prince and his companion, but no recognition showed on their faces. They continued on down the stair. The “fog of uncertainty” was working just as the cleric had claimed.

On the penultimate floor of the tower, they paused before the doors to the speaker’s private rooms. Servants stood outside, idle. They paid no heed to the prince or the cleric.

“Strange,” mused Sithas, words falling from his lips like drops of cold water. His own voice sounded muffled. “Why are they not inside with the speaker?”

He opened the door and hurried in. “Father?” he called. Sithas passed through the antechamber, with Vedvedsica close behind. After a glance around the room, he saw his father’s crumpled form lying on the stone floor by the window. He shouted for assistance.

“They cannot hear you.” Vedvedsica said, wafting into Sithas’s line of sight. Desperately the prince knelt and lifted his father. How light he felt, the great elf who ruled the elven nation! As Sithas placed his father on the bed, Sithel’s eyes fluttered open. His face was dazed.

“Kith? Is that you?” he asked in a strange, faraway voice.

“No, Father, it’s Sithas,” said the elf prince, stricken with anguish.

“You’re a good boy, Kith... but a willful fool. Why did you bare a weapon in the tower? You know it’s a sacred place.”

Sithas turned to the waiting Vedvedsica. “Take the spell off us!” he demanded fiercely. The cleric bowed and dampened a cloth at a wash basin, then wiped the prince’s forehead clean. Immediately, it seemed, the fog vanished from his senses. Just seconds later the cleric materialized, seemingly out of nowhere.

Swiftly Vedvedsica took some dried herbs from his shoulder pouch and crushed them into a pewter goblet that stood on a table near the speaker’s bed. Concerned, Sithas watched him work. The cleric next soaked the crushed dry leaves in crimson nectar, swirled the goblet to mix the ingredients, and held out the goblet to the prince.

“Let him drink this,” he said with confidence. “It will clear his head.”

Sithas held the goblet to his father’s lips. No sooner had the first red drops passed Sithel’s mouth, than his eyes lost their rheumy haze. Tightly he gripped Sithas’s wrist.

“Son, what is this?” He looked beyond Sithas and espied the sorcerer. Sharply he said, “Why are you here? I did not send for you!”

“But you did, great speaker.” Vedvedsica bowed deeply from the waist. “Your fevered mind called to me for help some hours ago. I came.”

“Do you know him, Father?” Sithas asked.

“All too well.” Sithel sank back on his pillows, so the prince set the goblet aside. “I’m sorry you had to meet him under such circumstances, son. I might have warned you.”

Sithas looked at Vedvedsica, his face mixed with gratitude and distrust. “Is he cured?”

“Not yet, my prince. There are other potions I must prepare. They will cure the speaker.”

“Get on with it, then,” Sithas commanded.

Vedvedsica flinched. “There is the matter of our bargain.”

Sithel coughed. “What bargain have you made with this old spider?” the speaker demanded.

“He will cure your fever if you allow me to call Kith-Kanan home,” Sithas said honestly. Sithel arched his white brows in surprise, and the prince averted his eyes from his father’s intense gaze.

“Call Kith?” he asked skeptically. “Vedvedsica, you’re no altruist. What do you want for yourself out of this?”

The cleric bowed again. “I ask only that the speaker’s heir pay me such an amount as he thinks appropriate.”

Sithel shook his head. “I don’t see why Kith-Kanan should interest you, but I don’t object,” he said with a heavy sigh, then turned to his heir. “What will you pay him, Sithas?”

The prince thought once more of the broken sword and the terrible feeling of suffering he’d felt from his twin. “Fifty gold pieces,” he said decisively.

Vedvedsica’s eyes widened. “A most handsome amount, great prince.”

Father and son watched in silence as the cleric compounded his healing potion. When at last it was done, he filled a tall silver beaker with the muddy green fluid. To Sithas’s surprise, Vedvedsica took a healthy swig of the mixture himself first and seemed satisfied. Then he held it out to the prostrate speaker.

“You must drink it all,” he insisted. Sithas handed the beaker to his father. Sithel raised himself on his elbows and downed the brew in three swallows. He looked expectantly at his son. In turn, Sithas turned to Vedvedsica.

“Well?”

“The effect is a subtle one, great prince, but rest assured, the speaker will shortly be cured of his fever.”

Indeed, Sithel’s forehead had become cooler to the touch. The speaker exhaled gustily, and sat up straighter. A tinge of color was returning to his pale cheeks. Vedvedsica nodded grandly.

“Leave us, sorcerer,” Sithel said tersely. “You may collect your payment later.”

Another deep bow. “As the speaker commands.” Vedvedsica produced the small bottle of unguent and began to apply it as before.

Holding up a hand, the prince said acidly, “Out the door first, cleric.”

Vedvedsica’s smile was wide as he departed.

*

Sithas left his father looking more fit than he had in a month, then proceded to make his way through the palace to spread word of his recovery. Vedvedsica wasn’t mentioned. The speaker’s recovery was reported as natural, a sign of the gods’ favor.

Finally, Sithas went down the tower steps to Kith-Kanan’s old room. No one was around. Dust lay thickly over everything for nothing had disturbed it since his brother had left in disgrace. How long ago had it been? Two years?

The room held all sorts of Kith’s personal items. His silver comb. His second favorite bow, now warped and cracked from the room’s dry air. All his courtly clothes hung in the wardrobe. Sithas touched each item of clothing, trying to concentrate his thoughts on his lost brother. All he felt were old memories. Some pleasant, many sad.

A strange sensation came over the prince. He felt as if he were moving up and away, though his body hadn’t stirred an inch. Smoke from a campfire teased his nose. The sound of wind in a forest filled his ears. Sithas looked down at his hands. They were browned by the sun and hardened by work and combat. These were not his hands; they were Kith-Kanan’s. The prince knew then that he must try to communicate with his twin, but when he opened his mouth to speak, his throat was tight. It was hard to form words. He concentrated instead on forming them in his mind.

Come home, he willed. Come home, Kith. Come home.

Sithas forced his lips to work. “Kith!” he cried.

Speaking his twin’s name ended the experience abruptly. Sithas staggered backward, disoriented, and sat down on his twin’s old bed. Dust rose around him. Streaks of sunlight, which had reached across the room when he came in, now had retreated to just under the window sill. Several hours had passed.

Sithas shook the queer disorientation out of his head and went to the door. He had definitely made contact with Kith, but whether he had made the fabled Call, he didn’t know. It was late now, and he needed to see how his father was doing.

Sithas left the room so hastily he didn’t pull the door completely closed behind him. And as he mounted the steps to the upper floor of the palace tower, the prince didn’t notice the door to Kith-Kanan’s room slowly swing open and remain that way.

Chapter 22

SPRING,
YEAR OF THE RAM

The days seemed empty. Each morning Kith-Kanan went to sit by the young oak. It was slender and tall, its twining branches reaching heavenward. Leaf buds appeared on it, as they did on all the trees in the forest. But these buds seemed a symbol, a notice that the wildwood was once again furiously and joyously alive. Even the clearing erupted in wildflowers and vibrant green growth. The path to the pool covered over in a day with new grass and nodding thistles.

“There’s never been a spring like this.” Mackeli exclaimed. “Things are growing while you watch!”

His spirits had recovered more quickly than Kith-Kanan’s. Mackeli easily accepted that Anaya’s change had been fated to happen, and he’d been trying to draw his friend out of his misery.

This beautiful day he and Kith-Kanan sat on a lower limb of the oak tree. Mackeli’s gangling legs swung back and forth as he chewed a sweet grass stem and looked over the clearing, “It’s like we’re besieged,” he added. Grass had grown to waist height in little more than a week. The bare ground around the tree, scuffed down to dirt by their daily walking on it, was gradually shrinking as the plants in the clearing grew.

“The hunting ought to be good,” Mackeli enthused. His newfound appetite for meat was enormous. He ate twice as much as Kith-Kanan and grew stronger all the time. And since the griffon had grown more skilled in bringing back game for them, they were well fed.

With the explosion of flowering trees and plants had come the onslaught of the insects. Not the Black Crawlers of Anaya’s acquaintance, but bees and flies and butterflies. The air was always thick with them now. Kith-Kanan and Mackeli had to keep a fire burning in the hearth at all times to discourage the bees from building a hive in the tree with them.

With Arcuballis bringing in a whole boar or deer once a day, there was little for the two elves to do. Still hoping to divert Kith-Kanan from his grief, Mackeli once more began to ask questions of Silvanost. They talked about the people, their clothing, eating habits, work routines, and more. Slowly, Kith-Kanan was persuaded to share his memories. To his surprise, he found himself feeling homesick.

“And what about —” Mackeli chewed his lower lip. “What about girls?”

Kith-Kanan smiled slightly. “Yes, there are girls.”

“What are they like?”

“The maids of Silvanost are well known for their grace and beauty,” he said, without much exaggeration. “Most of them are kindly and gentle and very intelligent, and a few have been known to take up horse and sword. Those are rare, though. They are red-haired, blond, sandy-haired, and I’ve seen some with hair as black as the nighttime sky.”

Mackeli drew in his legs, crouching on the balls of his feet. “I would like to meet them! All of them!”

“No doubt you would, Keli,” Kith-Kanan said solemnly. “But I cannot take you there.”

Mackeli knew the story of Kith-Kanan’s flight from Silvanost.

“Whenever Ny would get mad at me, I would wait a few days, then go and say I was sorry,” he suggested. “Can’t you tell your father you’re sorry?”

“It’s not that easy,” Kith-Kanan replied defensively.

“Why?”

The prince opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Why, indeed? Surely in the time that had gone by his father’s anger would have cooled. The gods knew his own anger at losing Hermathya had withered and died as if it had never been. Even now, as he spoke her name in his mind, no remembered passion stirred inside him. His heart would always belong to Anaya. Now that she was gone, why should he not return home?

In the end, though, Kith-Kanan always decided that he could not. “My father is Speaker of the Stars. He is bound by traditions he cannot flout. If he were only my father and angry with me, perhaps I could return and beg his forgiveness. But there are many others around him who wouldn’t want me back.”

Mackeli nodded knowingly. “Enemies.”

“Not personal enemies, just those priests and guild masters who have a vested interest in keeping things as they’ve always been. My father needs their support, which is why he married Hermathya to Sithas in the first place. I’m sure my return would cause much unrest in the city.”

Mackeli dropped out of his crouch. He swung his legs back and forth in the air. “Seems complicated,” he said. “I think the forest is better.” Even with the ache of Anaya’s loss in his heart, Kith-Kanan had to agree as he looked over the sunny clearing carpeted with flowers.

*

The Call struck him like a blow.

It was evening, four days after the prince’s discussion of Silvanost with Mackeli, and they were skinning a mountain elk. Neither Kith-Kanan nor the boy could explain why the griffon had flown two hundred miles to the Khalkist Mountains to catch the elk, but that was the nearest source of such animals. They were nearly finished with the skinning when the Call came.

Kith-Kanan dropped his flint skinning knife in the dirt. He jumped to his feet, hands outstretched as if he’d been stricken blind.

“Kith! Kith, what’s wrong?” Mackeli cried.

Kith-Kanan could no longer see the forest. Instead, he saw vague impressions of walls, floor, and ceiling made of white marble. It was as if he’d been lifted up out of his body and set down in Silvanost. He held a hand to his face and in place of his leather tunic and callused palm, he saw a smooth hand and a white silk robe. The ring on his finger he recognized as belonging to Sithas.

A jumble of sensations assaulted his mind: worry, sadness, loneliness. Sithas was calling his name. There was trouble in the city. Arguments and fighting. Humans at court. Kith-Kanan reeled as it came at him in a rush.

“Sithas!” he cried. When he spoke, the Call ended abruptly.

Mackeli was shaking him by his tunic. Kith-Kanan broke the boy’s grip and shoved him back. “What is it?” Mackeli asked, frightened.

“My brother. It was my brother, back in Silvanost... “

“You saw him? Did he speak?”

“Not in words. The nation is in peril —” Kith-Kanan pressed his hands to his face. His heart was pounding. “I must go back. I must go to Silvanost.” He turned and walked into the hollow tree.

“Wait! Do you have to go now?”

“I have to go. I have to leave now,” Kith-Kanan insisted tensely.

“Then take me with you!”

Kith-Kanan appeared in the doorway. “What did you say?”

“Take me with you,” Mackeli repeated in a hopeful tone. “I’ll be your servant. I’ll do anything. Clean your boots, cook your food-anything. I don’t want to stay here alone, Kith. I want to see the city of my people!”

Kith-Kanan went to where Mackeli stood, still holding his skinning knife. With the muddle of feelings clearing from his brain, he realized he was glad Mackeli wanted to go with him. He felt closer to him than he had to anyone except Anaya-and Sithas. If he was going back to face who knows what in Silvanost, he didn’t want to lose that friendship and support now.

Clapping a hand to the boy’s shoulder, Kith-Kanan declared, “You shall go with me, but never as my servant. You can be my squire and train to be a warrior. How does that sound?”

Mackeli was too overcome to speak. He threw his arms around Kith-Kanan and hugged him fiercely.

“When shall we leave?” the boy asked.

Kith-Kanan felt the powerful tug of the Call. Now, now, now. It coursed through his body like a second heartbeat. He steeled himself against the insatiable pull. It was late and there were preparations which must be made before they departed. “Tomorrow morning,” he decided.

*

Day came like the cracking of an egg. First all was smooth, unbroken night, then just a chip of sunlight showed to the east. It was enough to rouse the eager Mackeli, who splashed water on his face and announced himself ready to go.

“Is there nothing you want to take with you?” Kith-Kanan wondered.

Mackeli surveyed the inside of the tree. The flint tools, gourd bottles, clay-daubed baskets, none of them were worth taking, he said. Still, they needed food and water, so they loaded a pair of wicker baskets with meat, nuts, berries, and water, balancing the weight so Arcuballis could carry it all. Alone of the three of them, the griffon was still heavily asleep. When Kith-Kanan whistled through his teeth, Arcuballis raised its aquiline head out from under one wing and stood on its mismatched feet. Kith-Kanan gave the beast some water while Mackeli tied the food baskets to the back of the saddle.

A sense of urgency spurred them on. Mackeli chattered incessantly about the things he wanted to do and see. He scrubbed the residue of paint from his face, announcing that he didn’t want the city-dwellers to think he was a savage. Kith-Kanan tested the harness fittings under the griffon’s neck and chest, and Mackeli climbed onto the pillion. At last, though, Kith-Kanan hesitated.

“What is it?” the boy asked.

“There is one thing I must do!” He cut across the flower-choked clearing to the slender oak that had been Anaya. He stopped two yards away and looked up at the limbs reaching toward the sky. He still found it hard to accept that the woman he loved was here now, in any form. “Part of my heart stays with you here, my love. I have to go back now; I hope you understand.” Tears welled in his eyes as he took out his dagger. “Forgive me,” he whispered, then reached up and quickly sliced off a four-inch green shoot, well laden with bright green buds. Kith-Kanan cut a small slit in the tough deerhide of his tunic, directly over his heart, and put the shoot there.

The elf prince gazed up at the young tree, then looked around at the clearing where they had been so happy. “I love you, Anaya,” he said. “Farewell.” Turning, he walked quickly back to the griffon.

Kith-Kanan swung onto Arcuballis’s back and settled himself into the saddle. He whistled and touched the griffon with his heels, signaling the creature to be off. As the griffon bounded across the clearing, its strong legs tearing through the new growth, great torrents of petals and pollen flew into the air. At last the mount opened its wings and, in a stupendous bound, leaped into the air. Mackeli yelped with delight.

They circled the clearing, gaining height with each circuit. Kith-Kanan looked down for a few seconds, then he lifted his face and studied the clouds. He turned Arcuballis’s head northeast. They leveled out at a thousand feet. The air was warm, and a steady wind buoyed Arcuballis, enabling him to glide for long stretches with hardly a wingbeat.

Mackeli leaned forward and shouted in Kith-Kanan’s ear, “HOW long will it take us to get there?”

“One day, perhaps two.”

They passed over a world rapidly greening. Life seemed to be bursting from the ground even as they flew by. The lower air was full of birds, from tiny swallows to large flocks of wild geese. Farther below, the forest thinned, then gave way to plain. As the sun reached its zenith, Kith-Kanan and Mackeli saw the first signs of civilization since leaving the wildwood. There was a village below, laid out in a circle, with a sod wall surrounding it for protection. A pall of smoke hung over the village.

“Is that a city?” asked Mackeli excitedly.

“No, that’s barely a village. It looks like they’ve been attacked.” Worry and the edge of fear set Kith-Kanan’s heart to pounding as he hauled back on the reins. Arcuballis tipped over in a shallow dive. They flew through the smoke. Coughing, the elf prince steered the griffon in a slow circle around the despoiled village. Nothing moved. He could see the bodies of the fallen lying atop the wall and in between the huts.

“It’s terrible,” Kith-Kanan said grimly. “I’m going to land and take a look. Be on guard, Keli.”

Arcuballis touched down lightly outside the wall, near one of the rents that had been torn in it. Kith-Kanan and Mackeli dismounted. Mackeli had a crossbow, salvaged from Voltorno’s band, and Kith-Kanan had his compound bow. His scabbard hung empty by his side.

“You see what they did?” Kith-Kanan said, pointing to the gap in the sod wall. “The attackers used grappling hooks to pull down the wall.”

They stepped over the rubble of dried sod and entered the village. It was eerily quiet. Smoke eddied and swirled in the shifting wind. Where once people had talked and argued and laughed, there was now nothing but empty streets. Broken crockery and torn clothing were strewn here and there. Kith-Kanan turned over the first body he came to-a Kagonesti male, slain by sword. He could tell the elf had died not very long before, a day or two at most. Turning the fellow facedown once more, Kith-Kanan paused and shook his head. Horrible. During the Call he had sensed from Sithas that there was trouble in the land, but this? This was murder and rapine.

As they continued through the silent village, all the other dead they found were Kagenesti or Silvanesti males. No females, no children. All the farm animals were gone, as was practically everything else of value.

“Who could have done this?” Mackeli asked solemnly.

“I don’t know. Whoever it was, they didn’t want their identity known. Do you notice, they took their own dead with them?”

“How can you tell?”

Kith-Kanan pointed at the scattering of dead villagers. “These fellows didn’t just lay down and die. They died fighting, which means they must’ve taken a few of their enemies with them.”

On the west side of the village, they found a mass of footprints-horses, cattle, and people. The raiders had taken their elven and animal captives and driven them out onto the great plain. Mackeli asked what lay in that direction.

“The city of Xak Tsaroth. No doubt the raiders will try to sell their prizes in the markets there,” said Kith-Kanan grimly. He gazed at the flat horizon as if he might catch a glimpse of the bandits who had committed this outrage. “Beyond Xak Tsaroth is the homeland of the Kagonesti. It’s forest, much like the wildwood we just left.”

“Does your father rule all this land?” Mackeli said curiously.

“He rules it by law, but out here the real ruler is the hand that wields the sword.” Kith-Kanan kicked the dry plains soil, sending up a gout of dust. “Come, Keli. Let’s go.”

They trudged back to the griffon, following the outside curve of the village wall. Mackeli dragged his feet and hung his head. Kith-Kanan asked what was troubling him.

“This world beyond the forest is a dark place,” he said. “These folk died because someone wanted to rob them.”

“I never said the outside world was all marble cities and pretty girls,” Kith-Kanan replied, draping an arm across the boy’s shoulders. “Don’t be too discouraged, though. This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day. Once I tell my father about it, he will put an end to this brigandage.”

“What can he do? He lives in a far away city.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of the Speaker of the Stars.”

*

It was twilight of the second day when the white tops of the city towers first appeared. Arcuballis sensed the end of their journey was near; without Kith-Kanan’s urging, the beast quickened its wingbeat. The land raced by. The broad Thon-Thalas, mirroring the deep aquamarine of the evening sky, appeared, approached, and then flashed beneath the griffon’s tucked-in feet.

“Hello! Hello down there!” Mackeli called to the boaters and fishers on the river. Kith-Kanan shushed him.

“I may not be coming back to the warmest of welcomes,” he cautioned. “There’s no need to announce our return, all right?” The boy reluctantly fell silent.

Kith-Kanan found himself experiencing great doubt and no small amount of trepidation. How would he be received? Could his father forgive his outrage? One thing he knew, he was certainly not the same elf he had been when he left here. So much had happened to him, and he found himself looking forward to the time when he could share it with his twin.

Kith-Kanan had noticed the beginning of a settlement on the western bank of the river. From the grid layout, it looked like a town was being built on the river, opposite the piers and docks of Silvanost. Then, as they approached the city from the south, he saw that a large section of the Market was a blackened ruin. This alarmed him, for if the city had been attacked it might not be his father and twin who would be waiting for him when he landed. The prince was only a little relieved when he saw that the rest of the city appeared normal.

For his part, Mackeli leaned far to the side, staring with unabashed amazement at the wonders below. The city glittered in the sunlight. Marble buildings, green gardens, and sparkling pools filled his eyes. A thousand towers, each a marvel to the forest-raised boy, jutted above the artfully manicured treetops. Rising higher than all the rest was the Tower of the Stars. Kith-Kanan circled the great pinnacle and recalled with a pang the day he’d done it last. The number of days was small compared to an elf’s entire life, but the gulf it represented seemed as great as one thousand years.

Arcuballis was ready for home. The beast banked away from the tower with only a minimum of direction from Kith-Kanan and headed for the rooftop of the Quinari Palace. A line of torches burned along the flat roof, the flames whipped by a steady wind. The rosy palace tower was tinted a much deeper shade of red by the last rays of the setting sun.

Mackeli held tightly to Kith-Kanan’s waist as the angle of descent steepened. A single white-robed figure stood beside the line of torches. The griffon raised its head and wafted its wings rapidly. The mount’s forward speed diminished, and its clawed forelegs touched down on the roof. When its hind legs found purchase, Arcuballis folded its wings.

The figure in white, a dozen yards away, lifted a torch from its holder and walked toward the grounded griffon. Mackeli held his breath.

“Brother,” Kith-Kanan said simply as he dismounted.

Sithas held up the torch. “I knew you would come back. I’ve waited here every night since I called you,” said his twin warmly.

“I am glad to see you!” The brothers embraced. Seeing this, Mackeli threw a leg over and slid down the griffon’s rump to the roof. Sithas and Kith-Kanan drew apart and clapped each other on the shoulders.

“You look like a ragged bandit,” Sithas exclaimed. “Where did you get those clothes?”

“It’s a very long story,” Kith-Kanan replied. He was grinning so widely his face ached; Sithas’s expression mirrored his. “And you, when did you stop being a priest and become a prince?” he exclaimed, thumping Sithas’s back.

Sithas kept smiling. “Well, a lot’s happened since you left. I —” He stopped, seeing Mackeli come up behind Kith-Kanan.

“This is my good friend and companion Mackeli,” Kith-Kanan explained. “Keli, this is my brother, Sithas.”

“Hello,” said Mackeli casually.

“No,” Kith-Kanan chided. “Bow, like I told you.”

Mackeli bent awkwardly at the waist, bending nearly double. “Sorry, Kith! I meant, hello, Prince Sithas,” he said ingenuously.

Sithas smiled at the boy. “You’ve plenty of time to learn court manners,” he said. “Right now, I’ll wager you’d both like a hot bath and some dinner.”

“Ah! With that, I could die happy,” Kith-Kanan said, placing a hand over his heart. Laughing, he and Sithas started toward the stairwell, with Mackeli following a pace behind. Kith-Kanan suddenly halted.

“What about father?” he asked apprehensively. “Does he know you called me?”

“Yes,” said Sithas. “He was ill for a few days, and I asked him for permission to use the Call. He consented. A healer brought him through, and he’s well now. We’ve been dealing with ambassadors from Ergoth and Thorbardin, too, so things have been quite busy. We’ll go to him and mother as soon as you’re presentable.”

“Ambassadors? Why are they here?” Kith-Kanan asked. “And, Sith, what happened to the Market? It looks as though it was sacked!”

“I’ll tell you all about it.”

As the twins reached the steps, Kith-Kanan looked back. Stars were coming out in the darkening sky. The weary Arcuballis had dropped into a sleeping crouch. Kith-Kanan looked from the star-salted sky to the nearby bulk of the Tower of the Stars. Without really thinking about it, his hand went to the sprig of oak he’d snipped from Anaya’s tree and drew it out. It had changed. Where there had been tight buds, now the shoot was furnished with perfect green leaves. Even though it had been cut from the tree two days past, the sprig was green and growing.

“What is that?” asked Sithas curiously.

Kith-Kanan drew a deep breath and shared a knowing glance with Mackeli. “This is the best part of my story, Brother.” Tenderly he returned the oak shoot to its place over his heart.

Chapter 23

NIGHT OF REUNION

Freshly bathed, clothed, and fed, Kith-Kanan and Mackeli followed Sithas to the Hall of Balif. There the speaker, Lady Nirakina, and Lady Hermathya were having a late, private dinner.

“Wait here,” Sithas said, stopping his twin and Mackeli just outside the hall door. “Let me prepare them.”

Most of Mackeli’s attention was focused on his surroundings. Since entering the palace, he’d touched the stone walls and floor, felt bronze and iron fittings, and goggled at the courtiers and servants that passed by. He was dressed in one of Kith-Kanan’s old outfits. The sleeves were too short for him, and even though his ragged hair was combed as neatly as possible, he still looked like a well-costumed scarecrow.

Servants who recognized Kith-Kanan gaped in astonishment. He smiled at the elves, but admonished them in a low voice to go about their business as he stepped close to the hall door and listened. Hearing his father’s voice, even so indistinctly, brought a lump to his throat. Kith-Kanan peered around the door, but Sithas held a hand out to him. Straight as an arrow, he walked proudly into the now-silent hall. Then there was a gasp, and a silver spoon rang on the marble floor. Hermathya bent to retrieve the lost utensil.

Sithas stopped Mackeli so that Kith-Kanan could approach the table alone. The wayward prince of the Silvanesti stood across the oval table from his parents and former lover.

Nirakina rose halfway to her feet, but Sithel commanded her tersely to sit back down. The lady sank back into her chair, tears glistening on her cheeks. Kith-Kanan bowed deeply.

“Great speaker,” he began. Then: “Father. Thank you for letting Sithas call me home.” Both elf women snapped around to stare at Sithel, for they had not known of the speaker’s leniency.

“I have been angry with you a long time,” Sithel replied sternly. “No one in House Royal ever shamed us as you did. What have you to say?”

Kith-Kanan dropped to one knee. “I am the greatest fool who ever lived,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I know I shamed you and myself. I have made peace with myself and the gods, and now I want to make peace with my family.”

Sithel pushed back his chair and stood. His white hair seemed golden in the candlelight. He’d regained some of the weight he’d lost while ill, and the old fire in his eyes was renewed. He strode with firm, even steps around the table to where his younger son knelt.

“Stand up,” he said, still in his commanding speaker’s voice.

As Kith-Kanan got up, Sithel’s stern countenance softened. “Son,” he said when they were face to face.

They clasped hands about each other’s forearms in soldierly fashion. But it wasn’t enough for Kith-Kanan. He embraced his father with fervor, a fervor returned by Sithel. Over the speaker’s shoulder, Kith-Kanan saw his mother, still weeping, but now the tears tracked down on each side of a radiant smile.

Hermathya tried to maintain her aloofness, but her pale face and trembling fingers betrayed her. She dropped her hands to her lap and looked away, at the wall, at the ceiling, at anything but Kith-Kanan.

Sithel held the prince at arm’s length and studied his sunbrowned features. “I cannot deny you,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “You are my son, and I am glad to have you back!”

Nirakina came and kissed him. Kith-Kanan brushed away her tears and let her walk him back around the table to where their places were set. They came to Hermathya, still seated.

“You are looking well, Lady,” Kith-Kanan said awkwardly.

She looked up at him, blinking rapidly. “I am well,” she replied uncertainly. “Thank you for noticing.” Seeing Kith-Kanan at a loss for words, Sithas moved to intervene. He ushered Mackeli forward and introduced him. Sithel and Nirakina found the boy’s rustic manners both charming and amusing.

Now that the news was out, servants were roused from their work, even from bed, and whole troops of them filed into the hall to pay their respects to the returned prince. Kith-Kanan had always been popular with the members of House Servitor for his lively manner and kind heart.

“Quiet, all of you! Quiet!” Sithel shouted, and the throng became still. The speaker called for amphorae of fine nectar, and there was a pause as cups of the sweet beverage were passed through the crowd. When everyone had a share, the speaker raised his goblet and saluted his newly restored son.

“To Prince Kith-Kanan,” he exclaimed. “Home at last!”

“Kith-Kanan!” answered the great assembly. They all drank.

All but one. Hermathya held her cup tightly until her knuckles were as white as her face.

*

The servants finally dispersed, but the family remained. They surrounded Kith-Kanan and talked for hours, telling him what had happened during his absence. He, in turn, regaled them with his adventures in the wildwood.

“You see me now, a widower,” Kith-Kanan said sorrowfully, gazing at the dregs of nectar in his cup. “Anaya was claimed by the forest she had served so long.”

“Was this Anaya nobly born?” Nirakina delicately asked.

“Her birth was a mystery, even to her. I suspect she was stolen from her family by the guardian before her, just as she took Mackeli from his parents.”

“I’m not sorry she did so,” Mackeli said staunchly. “Anaya was good to me.”

Kith-Kanan allowed his family to assume Anaya was Silvanesti, like Mackeli. He also kept from them the news of his unborn child. The loss was too recent, and he wanted to keep some memories for himself.

Sithas broke the quiet interlude by commenting on the half-human Voltorno. “It fits with what we already suspect,” he ventured. “The emperor of Ergoth is behind the terror in our western provinces. He not only wants our land, but our timber, too.” Everyone knew that Ergoth had a sizable navy and needed wood for ships. Their own land was relatively poor in trees. Also, unlike elves, humans tended to build houses out of wood.

“At any rate,” the speaker noted, “the emissaries have been here nearly five weeks and nothing’s been accomplished. I was ill for a few days, but since my recovery we’ve made no progress at all.”

“I’d be glad to speak to the ambassadors of the things I saw and heard in the forest,” Kith-Kanan offered. “Men from Ergoth have been landing on our southern coast to plunder the forest. They would have taken Mackeli to Daltigoth as a slave. That’s a fact.”

“That’s probably what the raiders have done with the other captives,” Sithas said darkly. “The wives and children of the Silvanesti settlers.”

Kith-Kanan told of the sacked village he and Mackeli had seen on their way home. Sithel was disturbed to hear that a settlement so close to the capital had been attacked.

“You will come to the tower tomorrow,” the speaker declared. “I want the Ergothians to hear what you have seen!”

Sithel rose. “It is very late,” he said. “The session begins early, so we’d all better take our rest.” Mackeli was already snoring. Hermathya, likewise, was dozing where she sat, curled up in her chair.

Kith-Kanan roused Mackeli with a shake, and the boy sat up.

“Funny dream, Kith. I went to a great city, and people lived inside stone mountains.”

“Not so funny,” Kith-Kanan said, smiling. “Come on, Keli, I can put you in Sithas’s old room. Is that well with you, Brother?” Sithas waved his agreement.

Kith-Kanan kissed his mother’s cheek and said good night. Her face shone with contentment, which made her look decades younger.

“Good night, son,” she said devotedly.

A servant with a candelabrum arrived to conduct Mackeli to his bed. Sithel and Nirakina went out. At last, the brothers stood by the door.

“I’ll leave you to your wife,” Kith-Kanan said, nodding toward the sleeping Hermathya. Rather awkwardly, he added, “I’m sorry I missed the wedding, Sith. I hope you two are happy.”

Sithas stared at his wife’s sleeping form for a few seconds, then said, “It has been no bargain being married to her, Kith.” Kith-Kanan could not conceal his surprise. He asked in a whisper what was wrong.

“Well, you know how willful she is. She takes every opportunity to make herself known to the people. She throws trinkets from the windows of her sedan chair when she goes out. People follow after her, calling her name.” Sithas’s mouth hardened to a thin line. “Do you know what the city wits call us? The Shadow and the Flower! I don’t suppose I need to explain who is who, do I?”

Kith-Kanan suppressed a wry smile. ‘Thya always was chaos in motion.”

“There’s more to it than that. I think —” Sithas cut himself off as a servant came down the corridor toward the open door. The yellow glow of his candles flowed ahead of him like a stolen sunrise.

“Good night, Kith,” Sithas said suddenly. He summoned the servant and told him to guide the prince up the dark stairs to his room. Kith-Kanan regarded his twin curiously.

“I shall see you in the morning,” he said. Sithas nodded and held the hall door. As soon as Kith-Kanan went out, Sithas shut the door firmly.

Inside the hall, Sithas spoke sharply to Hermathya. “It’s very childish, this pretense of sleep.”

She sat up and yawned. “Quite a compliment from the master of pretense.”

“Lady, have you no respect for us or our position?”

Hermathya pushed her heavy chair away from the table. “Respect is all I do have,” she replied calmly. “Heavy, thick, rigid respect.”

*

The Palace of Quinari was sleeping, nearly everyone within it walls exhausted by the homecoming of Kith-Kanan. But in the gallery leading away from the central tower, two figures met in the dark and broke the silence with their whispers.

“He’s come back,” said the female voice.

“So I have heard,” answered the male. “It’s not a problem.”

“But Prince Kith-Kanan is a factor we hadn’t considered.” In her distress the female spoke louder than was necessary-or prudent.

“I considered him,” said the male voice calmly. “If anything, his return will be to our advantage.”

“How?”

“Kith-Kanan enjoys a certain popularity with all those who find his brother cold and uninspiring-elves such as the royal guard, for example. Moreover, my evaluation of the errant prince tells me he is more open and trusting than either his father or brother. And a trusting person is always more useful than a doubter.”

“You are clever. My father chose well when he picked you.” The female voice was once more calm and soft. There was the sound of heavy cloth being crushed and a kiss. “I wish we didn’t have to meet in shadows like this.”

“Von’t you think it’s romantic?” murmured the male voice.

“Yes... but it annoys me that so many think you are harmless.”

“My best weapon. Would you take it away from me?”

“Oh, never....”

There was silence for a while, then the female voice said, “How long till sun-up?”

“An hour or so.”

“I’m worried.”

“What about?” he asked.

“The whole affair is getting too complicated. Sometimes when I’m sitting in the audience hall I want to scream, the tension is so great.”

“I know,” the male voice said soothingly, “but our task is quite simple. We have only to delay and dissemble and keep the elves talking. Daily, our numbers swell. Time is our ally, my darling. Given enough time, the mighty elven nation will fall!”

Their slippered feet made only the slightest whisper on the cool marble floor as the conspirators stole down the gallery to the steps. They had to get back to their rooms before the palace stirred. No one must see them together, not even the members of their own delegation.

Chapter 24

THE DAY FOLLOWING

The entrance of Kith-Kanan into the Tower of the Stars the next day created a stir. Gone were Kith-Kanan’s tattered green buckskins. Now he wore smooth white robes and a silver circlet on his head. With great ceremony he was introduced to Lord Dunbarth. The dwarf doffed his floppy hat and said, “It is a great honor to meet you, Prince. I’ve heard much about you.”

“Perhaps we shall be friends anyway,” was the wry reply.

Meeting the human delegation was more forced. Praetor Ulwen sat in his portable chair like a wax image. Only the slight rise and fall of the blanket over his chest testified he was alive. Lady Teralind accepted Kith-Kanan’s hand, holding it for a long minute as she assessed this newest addition to the conference. He noted the dark circles under her eyes. The lady hadn’t slept very well the night before.

Ulvissen saluted, human fashion. Kith-Kanan imitated his gesture.

“Have we met before?” the elf prince asked, looking carefully at the bearded human.

“I don’t think so, noble prince,” Ulvissen replied coolly. “I served most of my military career on ships. Perhaps Your Highness met another human who looked like me. I understand it is hard for elves to distinguish one bearded man from another.”

“There is much in what you say.” Kith-Kanan walked away, but the idea that he’d seen Ulvissen before troubled him still. He paused before his father, bowed, and took his old seat on the speaker’s right. A human with a full, red-brown beard-where had he seen him?

“The fifteenth session of the Conference of Three Nations will now begin,” said Sithas, acting as his father’s herald. “Seated for Silvanesti is Prince Kith-Kanan.” The scribes at their tables wrote busily.

Dunbarth stood up-which had the effect of making him shorter, as his chair’s legs were longer than his own. “Great speaker, noble princes, Lord Praetor, Lady Teralind,” he began. “We have been here many days, and the principal obstacle in the way of peace is this question: Who rules the western plains and the forest? The noble speaker and his heir present as proof of their claim ancient treaties and documents. Lady Teralind, on behalf of the emperor of Ergoth, makes her claim from the point of view of the majority, claiming that most of the people who live in the disputed territory are Ergothians.” Dunbarth took a deep breath. “I summarize these positions as I have presented them to my king. I have this day received his reply.”

Murmurs of interest rose. Dunbarth unfolded a heavy piece of parchment. The golden wax seal of the king of Thorbardin was visible.

“Ahem,” said the dwarf. The muttering subsided. “To my right trusty and well-loved cousin, Dunbarth of Dunbarth, greetings: I hope the elves are feeding you well, cousin; you know how meager their eating habits are... “The emissary peered over the parchment at the speaker and winked. Kith-Kanan covered his mouth with one hand to hide his smile.

Dunbarth continued: “I charge you, Dunbarth of Dunbarth, to deliver to the Speaker of the Stars and the praetor of Ergoth this proposal-that the territory lying on each side of the Kharolis Mountains, seventy-five miles east and west, be entrusted to the Kingdom of Thorbardin, to be governed and administered by us as a buffer zone between the empires of Ergoth and Silvanesti.”

There was a moment of crystalline silence as everyone in the tower took in the message.

“Absolutely preposterous!” Teralind exploded.

“Not an acceptable proposal,” said Sithas, albeit more calmly.

“It’s only a preliminary idea,” Dunbarth protested. “His Majesty offers concessions, here —”

“Totally unacceptable!” Teralind was on her feet. “I ask the speaker, what do you think of this outlandish notion?”

All eyes turned to Sithel. He leaned back against his throne, his mask of composed command perfect. “The idea has some merit,” he said slowly. “Let us discuss it.” Ehmbarth beamed. Teralind’s face got very white, and Ulvissen was suddenly at her elbow, warning her to stay calm.

At that moment Kith-Kanan felt a flash of recognition; he remembered where he’d seen Ulvissen before. It had been the day he’d rescued Mackeli from Voltorno. When the half-human had fallen after their duel, a crowd of humans from his ship had raced up the hillside. The tallest human there had had a full, red-brown beard like Ulvissen’s. And since the human had already admitted that he’d spent most of his career aboard ships.. The prince started as his twin’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

Sithas was asking the speaker what merit he had found in the dwarves’ suggestion.

Sithel paused a moment before replying, considering his words carefully. “It is not King Voldrin’s offer to rule the troublesome region that I favor,” he said. “It is the idea of a buffer zone, independent of not just our rule and the emperor’s, but of Thorbardin’s as well.”

“Are you proposing we create a new country?” Teralind said curiously.

“Not a sovereign state, a buffer state,” replied the speaker.

Ulvissen tugged on his mistress’s sleeve urgently. Feeling harassed, Teralind turned her back to Sithel for a moment to speak with the seneschal. She then asked the company for a brief adjournment. Dunbarth sat down, carefully tucking the crinkly parchment letter from his king into his brocade vest. Despite the opposition to his king’s proposal, he was quite pleased with himself.

Kith-Kanan watched all this with barely contained agitation. He could hardly denounce Ulvissen during a diplomatic meeting-not when such an accusation would violate the law of good behavior in the Tower of the Stars on his first day back in Silvanost! Moreover, could he be certain Ulvissen was the man he’d seen with Voltorno? Bearded humans did tend to look alike. In any event, the elaborate manners and elliptical conversations of the ambassadors struck him as silly and wasteful of time.

“My king suggests a division of rights among the three nations,” Dunbarth resumed when Teralind signaled herself ready. “Ergoth to have grazing rights, Silvanesti to have growing rights, and Thorbardin to have the mineral rights.”

“Any proposal that puts the territory under any one nation’s control is unacceptable,” Teralind said shrilly. A strand of dark brown hair had come loose from its confining clasp. She absently looped it behind one ear. “Unless Ergothian rights are guaranteed,” she added curtly.

The delegations, mingled as they were behind the chairs of their respective leaders, began to debate among themselves the merits of a joint administration of the disputed land. Their voices got louder and louder. After a moment, Kith-Kanan couldn’t stand it any longer. He jumped to his feet.

Sithel raised a hand for quiet. “My son Kith-Kanan would speak,” he said. The faintest trace of a smile crossed his lips.

“As you know, I have only just returned to Silvanost,” the prince said, speaking quickly and nervously. “For some time I have been living in the wildwood, far to the south, where I came to know all sorts of people. Some, like my friend Mackeli, called the forest home. Others saw it as a place to be plundered. Ships from Ergoth have been lying off the coast while their crews steal inland to cut timber.”

“This is outrageous!” Teralind exploded. “What has this to do with the current question? Worse, these charges have no proof behind them!”

For once Sithel cast aside his assumed air of impartiality. “What my son tells you is true,” he said icily. “Believe it.” The force in his words stifled Teralind’s reply, and the speaker bade Kith-Kanan continue.

“The heart of the matter is that while kings and emperors wrestle over problems off national pride and prestige, people-innocent elves and humans-are dying. The gods alone know where the true blame lies, but now we have a chance to put an end to the suffering.”

“Tell us how!” said Teralind sarcastically.

“First, by admitting that peace is what we all want. I don’t have to be a soothsayer to know there are many in Daltigoth and Silvanost who think war is inevitable. So I ask you, is war the answer?” He turned to Lord Dunbarth. “You, my, lord. Is war the answer?”

“That’s not a proper diplomatic question,” countered the dwarf uncomfortably.

Kith-Kanan would not be put off. “Yes or no?” he insisted.

The entire company was looking at Dunbarth. He shifted in his chair. “War is never the answer, where people of good will —”

“Just answer the question!” snapped Teralind. Dunbarth arched one bushy eyebrow.

“No,” he said firmly. “War is not the answer.”

Kith-Kanan turned to the silent, crippled praetor and his wife. “Does Ergoth think war is the answer?”

The praetor’s head jerked slightly. As usual, his wife answered for him. “No,” Teralind replied. “Not when peace is cheaper.”

He turned at last to his father. “What do you say, great speaker?”

“You’re being impudent,” Sithas warned.

“No,” his father said simply, “it’s only right he ask us all. I don’t want war. I never have.”

Kith-Kanan nodded and looked around at the entire group. “Then, can’t some way be found to rule the land jointly, elves, humans, and dwarves?”

“I don’t see what the dwarves have to do with this,” said Teralind sulkily. “Hardly any of them live in the disputed land.”

“Yes, but we’re speaking of our entire land border,” Dunbarth reminded her. “Naturally, we are concerned with who is on the other side of it.”

Sunlight filtered into the hall through the hundreds of window slits up the walls of the tower; a mild breeze flowed in through the doorway. The day beckoned them out of the stuffy debate. Sithel rubbed his hands together and announced, “This is a good time to pause, not only for reflection on the question of peace, but also to take bread and meat, and stroll in the sunshine.”

“As ever, Your Highness is the wisest of us all,” said Dunbarth with a tired smile.

Teralind started to object, but the speaker declared the meeting adjourned for lunch. The hall rapidly emptied, leaving Teralind, Praetor Ulwen, and Ulvissen by themselves. Wordlessly, Ulvissen gathered the frail praetor in his strong arms and carried him out. Teralind worked to master her anger, tearing one of her lace handkerchiefs to bits.

*

It was a fine day, and the delegations spilled out the huge front doors into the garden that surrounded the mighty tower. Servants from the palace arrived bearing tables on their shoulders. In short order the processional walkway at the tower’s main entrance was filled with tables. Snow-white linen was spread on the tables, and a pleasant array of fruit and meats was set out for the speaker’s guests. A cask of blush nectar was rolled to the site, its staves making booming noises like summer thunder as the barrel rolled.

The ambassadors and their delegations crowded around the tables. Dunbarth took a brimming cup of nectar. He tasted the vintage, found it good, and wandered over to inspect the food. From there he spied Kith-Kanan standing at the edge of the garden by himself. Food in hand, the dwarf strolled over to him.

“May I join you, noble prince?” he asked.

“As a guest you may stand where you want,” Kith-Kanan replied genially.

“An interesting session this morning, don’t you think?” Dunbarth pulled apart a capon and gnawed at a leg. “This is the most progress we’ve made since we first convened.”

Kith-Kanan took a large bite from an apple and regarded the dwarf with some surprise. “Progress? All I heard was a lot of contentious talk.”

The dwarf flipped up the brim of his hat in order to hoist his golden goblet high. He drained the nectar and wiped the sticky liquid from his mustache. “Reorx bless me, Highness! Diplomacy is not like a hunt. We don’t track down our quarry, pot him, and cart him home to be eaten. No, noble prince, diplomacy is like an old dwarf combing his hair-every hair that comes out in his comb is a defeat, and every one that stays in his head is a victory!”

Kith-Kanan chuckled and looked around the garden. He missed the weight of a sword at his hip. And even more, he missed the sights and smells of the forest. The city seemed too bright, the air tinged with too much smoke. Odd, he’d never noticed those things before.

“What are you thinking, Highness?” asked Dunbarth.

What was he thinking? He returned his gaze to the dwarf. “The praetor’s wife is rather short-tempered, and the praetor himself never speaks. You’d think the emperor would have more able representatives,” Kith-Kanan commented. “I don’t think Lady Teralind does their cause much good.”

Dunbarth looked for a place to throw the capon leg bone, now that he had cleaned it of meat. A servant appeared as if summoned and collected the refuse. “Yes, well, smooth and subtle she’s not, but a lot can be accomplished by sheer stubbornness, too. Prince Sithas —” Dunbarth quickly recalled to whom he spoke and thought the better of what he had been about to say.

“Yes?” Kith-Kanan prompted him.

“It’s nothing, Highness.”

“Speak, my lord. Truth is not to be feared.”

“I wish I had Your Highness’s optimism!” A passing servitor refilled Dunbarth’s cup. “I was going to say that Prince Sithas, your noble brother, is a match for Lady Teralind in stubbornness.”

Kith-Kanan nodded. “It is only too true. They are much alike. Both believe they have right always on their side.”

He and Dunbarth exchanged some further pleasantries, then the dwarf said an abrupt good-bye. He wanted to mingle with the others a bit, he said, and wandered off aimlessly. But Kith-Kanan could read the purpose in his stride. He shook his head. Dwarves were supposedly bluff and hearty, but Dunbarth was more subtle than a Balifor merchant.

The prince strolled off on his own, among the head-high hedges of flowering vines and the artfully molded sculptures of boxwood and cedar.

The vigorous spring seemed to have followed him from the wildwood to Silvanost. The garden was a riot of bloom.

He thought of the clearing where he and his little family had lived. Had the bees built their hives in the hollow oak yet? Were the flowering trees dropping their blossoms into the pool that was the entrance to Anaya’s secret cave? In the midst of all the splendor and majesty that was Silvanost, Kith-Kanan remembered wistfully the simple life he had shared with Anaya.

His reverie was broken when he rounded a corner in the hedges and found Hermathya seated alone on a stone bench.

Kith-Kanan briefly considered turning and avoiding his former lover, but he decided that he couldn’t hide from her forever. Instead of leaving, he went up to her and said hello.

Hermathya did not look up at him, but gazed off into the blossoms and greenery. “I woke up this morning thinking I had dreamed you returned. Then I asked my maidservant, and she said it was true.” Her voice was low, controlled, and her hair shone in the sunlight. She wore it pulled back in a jeweled clasp, as befitted a high-born, married elf woman. Her pale arms were bare, her skin smooth and unblemished. He thought she was even more beautiful than when he’d left Silvanost.

She asked him to sit. He declined.

“Are you afraid to sit next to me?” she said, meeting his eyes for the first time. “It was once your favorite place to be.”

“Let’s not bring up the past,” Kith-Kanan said, keeping his distance. “That’s over and done with.”

“Is it?” Her eyes, as always, caught and held him.

He was intensely aware of her, as near as he was, and she stirred him. What elf could be so close to her flame-bright loveliness and not be moved? However, Kith-Kanan no longer loved Hermathya; he was certain of that.

“I’ve been married,” he said pointedly.

“Yes, I heard that last night. Your wife is dead, isn’t she?”

No, only changed, he thought. But he replied, “Yes, she is.”

“I thought about you a great deal, Kith.” Hermathya said softly. “The longer you were away, the more I missed you.”

“You forget, Thya, I asked you to flee with me-and you refused.”

She seized his hand. “I was a fool! I don’t love Sithas. You must know that,” she exclaimed.

Hermathya’s hand was smooth and warm, but Kith-Kanan still pulled his hand free of hers. “He is your husband and my brother,” he said.

She didn’t hear the warning in his statement. She leaned her head against him. “He’s a pale shadow of you, as a prince... and a lover,” she said bitterly.

Kith-Kanan moved away from the bench. “I have no intention of betraying him, Thya. And you must accept the fact that I do not love you.”

“But I love you!” A tear trickled down her cheek.

“If that’s true, then I pity you. I have passed into another life since we loved each other, years ago. I’m not the headstrong young fool I once was.”

“Don’t you care for me at all?” she asked, her face anguished.

“No.” he said truthfully, “I don’t care for you at all.”

One of Dunbarth’s dwarven servants came running through the maze of hedges. “Great prince!” he said breathlessly. “The speaker is recalling the assembly.”

Kith-Kanan walked away and did not look back at Hermathya, though he could hear her crying until he reached the entrance to the Tower of the Stars.

When he was out of earshot, Hermathya clenched her eyes shut, squeezing the tears from them. “So be it,” she hissed to herself. “So be it.” She picked up the golden goblet Kith-Kanan had left nearby and bashed the soft metal against the marble bench. The goblet was soon a twisted, misshapen lump.

*

The afternoon session dragged on as the three sides tried to decide who would govern the proposed buffer state. It was a tricky question, and every suggestion that came up was debated and discounted. Clerics and guildmasters from the city grew tired of the endless discussion and drifted away, thinning the crowd in the audience hall. After a time, Praetor Ulwen’s head nodded forward. His wife looked like she wanted a long nap herself.

“I can’t agree to give away mineral rights or crop-growing rights,” Teralind said testily, for the third time. “How do you expect our people to live? They can’t all herd cattle.”

“Well, your idea to have enclaves belonging to different nations is no solution,” Sithas said, tapping the arm of his chair to emphasize each word. “Instead of one large disputed territory, we’ll have scores of tiny ones!”

“Separate communities might be the answer,” mused Dunbarth, “if they are able to trade with each other.”

“They would fight over the choicest land,” the speaker said. He rubbed a hand against his left temple. “This is getting nowhere. Surely one of us can come up with a fair and adequate solution.”

No one said anything. Kith-Kanan shifted nervously in his seat. He had said virtually nothing during this session. Something Anaya had mentioned to him once was nagging at him. “I don’t meddle with the forest. I just protect it.” Perhaps that was the answer.

The prince stood quickly. The sudden movement startled everyone; they’d practically forgotten he was there. Sithel looked at his son questioningly, and Kith-Kanan self-consciously straightened the folds of his white robe.

“It seems to me,” he said with dignity, “that the entire problem with the western provinces comes from the fact that new settlers are pushing the old ones out. No one here, I think, would defend such activity.” Sithas and Dunbarth glanced at Teralind. She put her nose in the air and shrugged.

Kith-Kanan moved to the center of the floor. Sithas shifted restlessly as all eyes fixed on his brother. “If everyone is agreed upon the principle that all persons, regardless of race, have a right to settle on empty land, then the problem becomes a simple one-how to protect the legitimate settlers from those who seek to drive them off their land.”

“I sent soldiers once,” said the speaker flatly. “They were betrayed and slaughtered.”

“Forgive me, Father,” Kith-Kanan said, “but from what I have heard of the incident, they were too few and not the right kind of soldiers. If we are going to share the bounty of these lands, then the burden of protecting them must be shared. Soldiers from the city have no stake in the area; they simply obey the orders of the speaker.” The prince looked around at the company. “Do you not see? What’s needed is a local force, a militia, in which the farmer has his own shield and spear with which to protect his land and that of his neighbor.”

“Militia?” said Teralind with interest. Ulvissen was suddenly at her elbow trying to tell her something.

“Arm the farmers?” asked Dunbarth. The brim of his hat had lost its snap and drooped down over his eyes. He brushed it back.

“Peasants with spears would never stand up to mounted bandits,” asserted Sithas.

“They would if they were trained and led by experienced soldiers,” Kith-Kanan countered. He was thinking on his feet now. “One sergeant for each company of twenty; one captain for each band of two hundred.”

“Are you speaking of all settlers in the disputed lands being armed?” asked Dunbarth. “Even those not of elven blood?”

“Definitely. If we arm one group and not another, it’s just an invitation for war. A mixed militia will bind the people together, serving shoulder to shoulder with men of other races.”

“I still say farmers and cow herders will never catch a fast-moving party of raiders,” Sithas said stiffly.

Kith-Kanan’s enthusiasm brought him right up to his brother’s chair. “Don’t you see, Sith? They don’t have to catch the bandits. They only have to be able to fend them off. Why, the ruined village Mackeli and I saw had a sod wall eight feet high all around it. If the villagers had had a few spears and had known how to fight, they all might have been saved.”

“I think it is an excellent idea,” Sithel remarked.

“I like it, too.”

Kith-Kanan swiveled around to see if what he’d just heard was true. Teralind was sitting proudly, hands folded on the lap of her burgundy gown. “I like it,” she repeated firmly. “It puts the responsibility on the people living there.” Behind her Ulvissen was livid with ill-suppressed anger. “No army need be sent in, yours or ours. The emperor will save much money.”

“I have some doubts about the efficacy of such a militia,” Dunbarth put in, “but never let it be said that Dunbarth of Dunbarth wasn’t willing to give it a try!” The dwarf whipped off his bothersome hat. “I smell peace!” he declared, throwing the hat to the shiny marble floor.

“Don’t be hasty,” Sithas warned. His cool voice dampened the growing elation in the hall. “My brother’s plan has its merits, but it doesn’t address the problem of sovereignty. I say, let there be a militia, but only elves may bear arms in it.”

Kith-Kanan looked stricken, and Teralind rapidly lost her serene expression. She said, “No! That’s impossible. Ergoth will not allow humans to live as hostages among an army of elves!”

“Quite right,” said Dunbarth, picking up his hat and dusting it off against his leg.

“We cannot abandon our ancestral right to this land!” Sithas insisted.

“Be still,” the speaker said, frowning. Now it was Sithas’s turn to look aggrieved. “This is a practical business we’re in. If Ergoth and Thorbardin like Kith-Kanan’s proposal, I cannot in good conscience throw away the best chance we have for peace.”

Sithas opened his mouth to speak, but Sithel stifled him with a glance. The prince turned away, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

After a short while, when more specific details were worked out, a basic agreement was reached. Each of the three nations was to provide a corps of experienced warriors to serve as organizers of the new militia. Armories would be set up, where the warrior officers would reside. And in times of trouble all able bodied settlers within twenty miles would present themselves at the armory to receive weapons and leadership. No single nation would command the militia.

“You expect professional warriors to live in the wilderness, shepherding a motley rabble of farmers?” Sithas asked with ill-concealed irritation. “What will keep them in their place?”

Kith-Kanan folded his arms. “Land,” he declared. “Give them a stake in the peace of the country.”

“Give them enough to be worth working,” said Dunbarth, catching the gist of Kith-Kanan’s idea.

“Exactly! Five acres for every sergeant, twenty acres for every captain. A whole new class of gentry will arise, loyal to the land and to their neighbors,” Kith-Kanan predicted.

The speaker ordered the scribes to prepare a draft of the decree. Then, as it was nearly dusk, he adjourned the session. Everyone stood while Sithel went out, looking tired but very pleased. Teralind’s shoulders sagged, and she was supported on the arm of Ulvissen, who did not look at all happy with events. Neither did Sithas as he left. Kith-Kanan was about to start after him when Dunbarth called to him.

“My prince,” he enthused, “Congratulations on your masterful stroke!”

Kith-Kanan watched his twin disappear out the private exit to the palace. “Yes, thank you,” he said distantly.

“I praise the gods for bringing you back,” continued the dwarf, folding his hands across his round belly. “That’s what this problem needed, a fresh perspective.” Dunbarth cleared his throat.

“Oh, your pardon, my lord. I’m being rude,” said Kith-Kanan, turning his attention to the ambassador from Thorbardin.

“Do not trouble about it.” Dunbarth glanced at the rear exit and commented, “Your brother is proud, and he hasn’t yet learned the benefit of flexibility. Your father is wise. He understands.”

The elf prince’s brow furrowed with thought. “I suppose,” he replied uncertainly.

Guards opened the vast double doors of the tower. Beyond the entryway, the red rays of the setting sun painted the world scarlet. Only Dunbarth’s small retinue, two scribes and his secretary, Drollo, remained, waiting patiently for their master.

Dunbarth’s eyes shone as he plopped his hat on his head. “Noble prince, would you dine with me? I have an urge to try some inn in your city tonight-not that the dining is poor in the palace. Far from it! It’s just that I crave some hearty, simple fare.”

Kith-Kanan smiled. “I know a place, right on the river. Fried catfish, cabbage rolls, a suet pudding...”

“Beer?” said the dwarf hopefully. Elves don’t drink beer, so the ambassador hadn’t had any since coming to Silvanost.

“I think the innkeeper ought to be able to scratch some up,” Kith-Kanan assured him.

The elf prince and the dwarven ambassador walked out the high doors and into the crimson evening.

*

After leaving the Tower of the Stars, Sithas walked through the starlit streets. He wanted to be alone, to think. Anger propelled his steps, and habit steered him to the Temple of Matheri, where so much of his early life had been spent. The crystal dome of the sanctum of the god rose above the sculpted trees like a rising moon, lit a golden yellow from within. Sithas took the steps two at a time. At the door, he dipped his hands in the bowl of rose petals set on a tripod and scattered them on the paving before him.

In quick, barely audible tones, he said, “Wise Matheri, grant me entrance that I may commune with you.” The buffed wooden doors parted silently, with no hand to stir them. Sithas went inside.

In the center of the floor, directly under the great dome, the ever-burning lamp of Matheri stood.

The silent, smokeless flame cast harsh shadows around the circular room. Along the outer edge of the temple were the meditation chambers of the monks. Sithas knew them well. This was where he had lived for thirty years of his life.

He went to his old cubicle. It was empty, so he entered. Sitting on the hard floor, he crossed his legs. The prince tried to meditate, to find the reason for his resentment of Kith-Kanan’s success. As the priests had taught him, he imagined a dialogue with himself.

“You are angry, why?” he asked aloud.

In his mind, he formed a reply. Kith’s suggestion is dangerous to the nation.

“Is it? Why?”

It allows the humans to remain on land that rightfully belongs to us.

“They have been there for years. Is their presence intrinsically bad?”

The land belongs to the elven nation. No one else.

“An inflexible attitude. Is this the reason you’re angry?”

Sithas paused and considered. He closed his eyes and examined closely the feelings that crowded inside his heart.

No. I’ve been working at father’s side for weeks, discussing, planning, thinking, and re-thinking, yet nothing was accomplished. I should have thought of the militia plan. I have failed.

“You are jealous of Kith-Kanan.”

I have no reason to be jealous. I am the speaker’s heir. Yet a short time ago I found myself wishing I hadn’t called him back.

“Why did you?”

He’s my brother. I missed him. I thought father might die —

Before he could ponder his feelings further, the carved rosewood door of the cell swung open.

Sithas looked up, ready to lash out at whomever would intrude. It was Hermathya.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded harshly.

She stepped into the little room. Covered from head to toe in a midnight-black cape, she dropped the hood from her head. Diamonds gleamed faintly from her earlobes.

“I knew you would be here,” she said in a low voice. “You always come here when you’re upset.”

Sithas felt an icy mask of resolve fall into place, covering his painful emotions. “I am not upset,” he said coldly.

“Tosh, I heard you raving to yourself as soon as I came in.”

He stood and brushed the dust from his knees. “What is it you want?” he demanded again.

“I heard what happened at the tower today. It doesn’t look good for you, does it? All these days of negotiating for nothing, then Kith solves everything in one day.”

She was only reinforcing what his bitter heart had been saying. Sithas moved until he was only inches from her. He could smell the rosewater she’d bathed in. “Are you trying to provoke me?” he asked, staring into her eyes.

“Yes.” He felt her breath on his face when she said it. “I’m trying to provoke you into being a prince and not some sort of high-born monk!”

He drew away. “You are as tactful as ever, Lady. Leave me to recover my temper. Your advice is not needed or welcome.”

Hermathya made no move to go. “You need me,” she insisted. “You’ve always needed me, but you’re too stubborn to know it.”

Sithas swept a hand over the single candle that lit the cubicle. Darkness, save for a stray shaft of light that slipped in around the closed door, claimed the room. He could see the heat outline of Hermathya, her back to the door, and she could hear his quick breathing.

“When I was a child, I was sent to this temple to learn patience and wisdom. The first three days I was here, I wept all my waking hours because I’d been separated from Kith. I could live without my mother and father, but cut off from Kith... I felt like I’d been cut open and part of me had been torn out.”

Hermathya said nothing. The diamonds in her ears sparkled like stars in the scant light.

“Later, when we were older, I was allowed to go home to the palace and visit a few days each month. Kith was always doing something interesting-learning to ride, fence, shoot a bow. He was always better than me,” Sithas said. Resignation was creeping into his voice.

“There is one thing you have that he hasn’t,” Hermathya said soothingly, reaching out in the dark for Sithas’s hand.

“What’s that?”

“Me.”

Sithas uttered a short, sardonic laugh. “I daresay he could have you if he wanted you!”

She snatched her hand from his and slapped Sithas hard across the cheek. Her blow stung his face. Forgetting his training, the prince seized his wife roughly and brought their faces together until they were only a finger’s width apart. Even in the dim cubicle, he could see her pale features clearly, and she his.

She said desperately, “I am your wife!”

“Do you still love Kith-Kanan?” Despite the coldness of their marriage, Sithas braced himself for her answer.

“No,” she whispered fiercely. “I hate him. Anything that angers you, I hate.”

“Your concern for me is touching. And quite new,” he said skeptically.

“I admit that I thought I might still love him,” she whispered, “but since seeing him, I know it’s not true.” Tremors shivered through her. “You are my husband,” Hermathya declared passionately. “I wish Kith-Kanan were gone again, so he couldn’t ever make you feel small!”

“He’s never tried to make me feel small,” Sithas retorted.

“And what if he wins your father’s favor completely?” she parried. “The speaker could declare Kith-Kanan his heir if he felt he would do a better job of ruling than you.”

Father would never do that!”

Her lips were by his ear. She pressed her cheek against his and felt his tight grip relax. Quickly she said, “The militia must have an overall commander. Who better than Kith-Kanan? He has the skills and experience for it. With all those square miles to patrol, he could be gone for decades.”

Sithas turned his head away, and she knew he was thinking about it. A small, triumphant smile played about her lips. “By then,” she murmured, “we will have a son of our own, and Kith could never come between you and the throne.”

The prince said nothing, but Hermathya was patient. Instead of prompting him further, she laid her head on his chest. His heartbeat was strong in her ear. After a time, Sithas slowly brought his hand up and stroked her copper-gold hair.

Chapter 25

BY NEXT DAWN

When it came to the spread of important news, the great city of Silvanost was just like a tiny village.

By the next morning, word of the tentative agreement between the speaker and the representatives of Ergoth and Thorbardin had penetrated every corner of the capital. The city, and the elven nation itself, seemed to let out a long-held breath. Fear of war had been uppermost in the minds of all the people, followed closely by fear that large numbers of refugees would once more be driven back into the city by the bandit raids.

When the new day dawned, rimmed by low clouds and chilly with the threat of rain, the people of Silvanost behaved as if it was a bright, sun-filled day. The nobility, priests, and guildmasters heard cheering as their sedan chairs were carried through the streets.

Kith-Kanan went into the city that morning on horseback with Lord Dunbarth. It was the prince’s first chance to see Silvanost since his return. His appetite had been whetted when he and the dwarf had dined at the Inn of the Golden Acorn. There, with good food and drink, stirred by the strains of a bardic lyre, Kith-Kanan had rediscovered his love for the city, dormant for all his months in the wildwood.

He and Dunbarth rode through the crowded streets of the family quarter, where most of Silvanost’s population lived. Here the houses were less grand than the guildmasters’ halls or the priestly enclaves, but they mimicked the styles of the great homes. Beautifully sculpted towers rose, but only for three or four stories. Tiny green plots of land in front of each home were molded by elven magic to support dazzling gardens of red, yellow, and violet flowers; shrubs formed into wave patterns like the river; and trees that bowed and twined together like the braids in an elf maiden’s hair. Nearly every house, no matter how small, was built in imitation of the homes of the great, around a central atrium that held the family’s private garden.

“I didn’t realize how much I missed it,” Kith-Kanan said, steering his horse around a pushcart full of spring melons.

“Miss what, noble prince?” asked Dunbarth.

“The city. Though the forest became my home, a part of me still lives here. It’s like I’m seeing Silvanost for the first time!”

Both elf and dwarf were dressed plainly, without the fine embroidery, golden jewelry, or other outward signs of rank. Even their horses were trapped in the simplest possible style. Kith-Kanan wore a wide-brimmed hat, like a fisher, so that his royal features would be less obvious. They wanted to see the city, not be surrounded by crowds.

Together the duo turned off Phoenix Street and rode down a narrow alley. Kith-Kanan could smell the river even more strongly here. When he emerged in the old Market quarter, ruined by the great riot and now under repair, Kith-Kanan reined up and surveyed the scene. The entire marketplace, from where his horse stood down to the banks of the Thon-Thalas, had been razed. Gangs of Kagonesti elves swarmed around the site, sawing lumber, hauling stones, mixing mortar. Here and there a robed priest of E’li stood, directing the work.

For a large project, like a high tower, magic would be used to shape and raise the stones of the walls and meld the blocks together without need for mortar. In the mundane buildings of the marketplace, more ordinary techniques would be used.

“Where do all the workers come from?” Kith-Kanan wondered aloud.

“As I understand it, they’re slaves from estates to the north and west, owned by the priests of E’li,” said Dunbarth without inflection.

“Slaves? But the speaker put severe limits on the number of slaves anyone could own.”

Dunbarth stroked his curly beard. “I know it may shock Your Highness, but outside of Silvanost the speaker’s laws aren’t always followed. They are bent to suit the needs of the rich and powerful.”

“I’m certain my father doesn’t know about this,” Kith-Kanan said firmly.

“Forgive me, Highness, but I believe he does,” Dunbarth remarked confidentially. “Your mother, the Lady Nirakina, has many times pleaded with the speaker to free the slaves of Silvanesti, to no avail.”

“How do you know these things? Aren’t they private matters of the palace?”

The dwarf smiled benignly. “It is a diplomat’s purpose to listen as well as talk. Five weeks in the Quinari Palace exposes one to all sorts of gossip and idle talk. I know the love lives of your servants and who among the nobility drinks too much-not to mention the sad plight of slaves in your own capital city.” With that, Dunbarth’s smile vanished.

“It’s intolerable!” Kith-Kanan’s horse sensed his rider’s agitation and pranced around in a half-circle. “I’ll put a stop to this right now!”

He tightened the reins and turned his mount’s head. Before he could ride over to confront the supervising priests, Danbarth caught his reins and held him back.

“Don’t be hasty, my prince. The priesthoods are very powerful. They have friends at court who will speak against you.”

Kith-Kanan was indignant. “Who do you mean?”

Dunbarth’s gaze was level. “I mean your brother, the noble Sithas.”

Kith-Kanan squinted from under the brim of his hat. “My twin is not a slave driver. Why do you say this to me, my lord?”

“I only say what is true, Highness. You know the court; you know how alliances are made. Prince Sithas has become the defender of the temples. In turn, the priests support him.”

“Against whom?”

“Anyone who opposes him. The priestess Miritelisina, of the Temple of Quenesti Pah, for one. She tried to defend those who fled from the slaughter on the plains. You know of the riot?” Kith-Kanan knew Sithas’s version of the story. He indicated Dunbarth should continue.

“The riot began because Prince Sithas and the priests, along with the guildmasters, wanted to expel the poor farmers from the city. Miritelisina warned them. They misunderstood her and, believing they were to be sent back to the plains, rioted. For that the priestess was put in prison. The speaker has let her go free, but she continues her work for the poor and homeless.”

Kith-Kanan said nothing, but watched as three Kagonesti passed by with a ten-inch-thick log braced on their shoulders.

In each one he saw Anaya-the same dark eyes and hair, the same passion for freedom.

“I must speak out against this,” he said at last. “It is wrong for one of the firstborn race to own another.”

“They will not hear you, Highness,” Dunbarth said sadly.

Kith-Kanan put his horse’s head toward the palace. “They will hear me. If they don’t listen, I’ll shout at them till they do.”

They rode back at a brisk canter, avoiding the clogged streets in the center of the city and keeping to the riverside roads. By the time they reached the plaza in front of the palace, a light rain had started to fall. Mackeli was standing in the courtyard in his new squire’s livery, a studded leather jerkin and helmet. When Kith-Kanan rode up, Mackeli hurried over and held the prince’s horse while he dismounted.

“You look splendid,” Kith-Kanan said, sizing up Mackeli’s new outfit.

“Are you sure this is what squires wear?” asked the boy. He hooked a finger in the tight collar and tugged at the stiff leather. “I feel like I’ve been swallowed by a steer.”

Kith-Kanan laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Wait until you put on your first real armor,” he said exuberantly. “Then you’ll feel like one of our giant turtles has swallowed you!”

The three left the horses for the servants to stable and entered the palace. Maids appeared with dry towels. Kith-Kanan and Dunbarth made perfunctory swipes at their faces, then handed the cloths back. Mackeli dried himself carefully, all the while eyeing the handmaids with frank interest. The girls, both of whom were about the boy’s age, blushed under his studied gaze, “Come along,” Kith-Kanan scolded, dragging at Mackeli’s sleeve. Dunbarth plucked the towel from his hand and returned it to the servants.

“I wasn’t finished,” Mackeli protested.

“If you’d dried yourself any longer, you’d have taken hide and hair off, too,” observed the dwarf.

“I was looking at the girls,” Mackeli said bluntly.

“Yes, like a wolf looks at his dinner,” noted Kith-Kanan. “If you want to impress the fair sex, you’d best learn to be a little more discreet.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means, don’t stare,” advised Dunbarth. “Smile at them and say something pleasant.”

Mackeli was puzzled. “What should I say?”

Kith-Kanan put a hand to his chin and considered. “Pay them a compliment. Say, ‘what pretty eyes you have!’ or ask them their name and say, ‘what a pretty name!’ “

“Can I touch them?” asked Mackeli innocently.

“No!” exclaimed the two in unison.

They spotted Ulvissen in the corridor, accompanied by one of the human soldiers. The Ergothian seneschal was handing the soldier a large brass tube, which the man furtively tucked into a leather bag hung from his shoulder. Ulvissen stood up straight when he saw Kith-Kanan. The soldier with the tube saluted and went on his way.

“How goes it, Master Ulvissen?” the prince asked blandly.

“Very well, Your Highness. I have dispatched a copy of the preliminary agreement we’ve made to His Imperial Majesty.”

“Just now?”

Ulvissen nodded. Behind his beard and graying hair, he looked haggard. Kith-Kanan guessed Lady Teralind had kept him up very late, preparing the dispatch.

“Would you know where my father and Prince Sithas might be?”

“I last saw them in the reception hall, where seals were being put to the copies of the agreement,” said Ulvissen courteously. He bowed.

“Thank you.” Kith-Kanan and Dunbarth walked on. Mackeli, too, drifted past the tall, elder human, looking at him with curiosity.

“How old are you?” asked Mackeli impetuously.

Ulvissen was surprised. “Forty and nine years,” he replied.

“I am sixty-one,” said the boy. “Why is it you look so much older than I?”

Kith-Kanan swung around and took Mackeli by the elbows. “Forgive him, Excellency;” said the prince. “The boy has lived all his life in the forest and knows little about manners.”

“It is nothing,” said Ulvissen. Yet he continued to watch with an intense expression as the prince and the dwarf ambassador hustled Mackeli away.

*

The reception hall of the palace was on the ground floor of the central tower, one floor below the Hall of Balif. Dunbarth took his leave of Kith-Kanan in the corridor outside. “My old bones need a nap,” he apologized.

Mackeli started to follow the prince, who told him to remain behind. The boy objected, but Kith-Kanan said sharply, “Find some other way to be useful. I’ll be back soon.”

When Kith-Kanan entered, the vast, round room was full of tables and stools, at which scribes were furiously writing. The entire transcript of the conference was being written out in full and copied as quickly as the master scribe could finish a page.

Sithel and Sithas stood in the center of this organized chaos, approving sheets of parchment covered with spidery handwriting. Boys darted among the tables, filling inkpots, sharpening styluses, and piling up fresh stacks of unmarked vellum. When Sithel espied him, he shoved the parchment aside and gestured for the assistant to leave.

“Father, I need to speak with you. And you, Brother,” Kith-Kanan said, gesturing to a quieter side of the hall. When they had moved, the prince asked bluntly, “Do you know that gangs of slaves are working in the city, working to rebuild the Market?”

“That’s common knowledge,” said Sithas quickly. He was especially elegant today, having forsworn his usual robe in favor of a divided kilt and a thigh-length tunic of quilted cloth of gold. His headband, too, was golden.

“What about the law?” asked Kith-Kanan, his voice rising. “No household is supposed to have more than two slaves at a time, yet I saw two hundred or more working away, watched over by clerics from the Temple of E’li.”

“The law only applies to those who live in Silvanost,” Sithas said, preempting his father again.

Sithel kept quiet and let his sons argue. He was curious to see which would prevail. “The slaves you saw come from temple estates on the Em-Bali River, north of the city,” added the speaker’s firstborn.

“That’s an evasion,” Kith-Kanan said heatedly. “I never heard of a law that applied only in Silvanost and not to the entire nation!”

“Why all this concern about slaves?” Sithas demanded.

“It isn’t right.” Kith-Kanan clenched his hands into fists. “They are elves, the same as us. It is not right that elves should own one another.”

“They are not like us,” Sithas snapped. “They are Kagonesti.”

“Does that automatically condemn them?”

Sithel decided it was time to intervene. “The workers you saw were sold into slavery because they were convicted of crimes against the Silvanesti people,” he said gently. “That they are Kagonesti is of no significance. Your concern for them is misplaced, Kith.”

“I don’t think so, Father,” his son argued earnestly. “We’re all proud of our Silvanesti blood, and that’s good. But pride should not lead us to exploit our subjects.”

“You have been in the woods too long,” said Sithas coolly. “You have forgotten how the world works.”

“Hold your tongue,” Sithel intervened sharply. “And you too, Kith.” The Speaker of the Stars looked rueful. “I am glad to know both my sons feel so passionately about right and wrong. The blood of Silvanos has not run thin, I can see. But this debate serves no purpose. If the slaves in the Market are well treated and do their allotted work, I see no reason to tamper with the situation.”

“But, Father —”

“Listen to me, Kith. You’ve only been back four days. I know you grew used to much freedom in the forest, but a city and a nation cannot operate like a camp in the wildwood. Someone must command, and others must obey. That’s how a speaker can protect the weak and rule with justice.”

“Yes, Father.” When Sithel explained it like that, it almost made sense. Still, Kith-Kanan knew that no amount of logic and lawful argument would ever convince him that slavery was anything but wrong.

Sithas listened to Sithel’s words with his arms folded in satisfaction. Kith was not as infallible as he seemed, thought the firstborn. Facing down Kith’s sentimental ramblings made him feel every inch the next Speaker of the Stars.

“Now I have a command for you, son,” Sithel said to Kith-Kanan. “I want you to lead the new militia.”

Utter silence. Kith-Kanan tried to digest this. He was just back home, and now he was being sent away. He looked at Sithas-who glanced away-then back at the speaker. “Me, Father?” he asked, dazed.

“With your experience as a warrior and ranger, who better? I have already spoken with Lady Teralind and Lord Dunbarth, and they agree. A speaker’s son, ranger, and a friend of the Kagonesti, you are the best choice.”

Kith-Kanan looked to Sithas. “This was your idea, Sith?”

His brother shrugged. “Clear reasoning pointed to you and no one else.”

Kith-Kanan ran a hand through his tousled hair. The crafty old Dunbarth knew all through their ride this morning and hadn’t said a word. In fact, had he led the way to the Market to show Kith-Kanan the slaves at work there? To prepare him for this?

“You can refuse,” noted the speaker, “if you wish.” He plainly expected no such reaction from his stalwart son.

A rush of images and thoughts flooded Kith-Kanan’s mind. In quick succession he saw the ruined village he and Mackeli had found; Voltorno, roving and plundering at will through Silvanesti; Anaya, mortally stricken, fighting bows and swords with a flint knife; Kagonesti slaves, stripped of

their lives.

The prince also heard his own words: “If the people had possessed a few spears, and had known how to fight, they might all have been saved.” Kith-Kanan’s gaze remained on his twin for a long moment, then he looked at the speaker. “I accept,” he said quietly.

*

With Mackeli at his side, Kith-Kanan spent the next few days interviewing members of the royal guard who had volunteered for the militia. As he had predicted, the lure of free land was a powerful inducement to soldiers who seldom owned anything more than the clothes on their backs. Kith-Kanan could select the very best of them as his sergeants.

A great public celebration had been declared, both to honor the new agreement with Ergoth and Thorbardin and to honor Kith-Kanan’s ascent to command of the new militia of House Protector. The force was already being called the Wildrunners, after the old name given to the armed bands of Kagonesti who had fought for Silvanos during the wars of elven unification.

*

“I still don’t understand why we don’t just fly out there,” Mackeli said, struggling under the weight of real armor and a pot-shaped iron helmet.

“Griffons are reserved as mounts of House Royal,” Kith-Kanan said. “Besides, there aren’t enough of them for this whole company.” He cinched a rope tight around the last bundle of his personal gear. His chestnut charger, Kijo, bore the weight of bedroll and armor well. Kith-Kanan had been pleased to discover that his old mount was still as spirited as ever.

Mackeli regarded the horses skeptically. “Are you sure these beasts are tame?”

Kith-Kanan smiled. “You rode Arcuballis one thousand feet up in the air, and now you’re worried about riding on horseback?”

“I know Arcuballis,” the boy said apprehensively. “I don’t know these animals.”

“It will be all right.” Kith-Kanan went down the line of horses and warriors. The last knots were made, and the good-byes were being said.

The Processional Road was full of elves and horses. Two hundred and fifty warriors and an equal number of mounts milled about. Unlike Sithel’s earlier, ill-fated expedition, Kith-Kanan’s band was to be entirely mounted and self-sufficient. This was the largest force to leave Silvanost since the days of the founding wars.

It was a splendid spectacle, and the sides of the street were lined with townsfolk. The warriors had discarded their fancy parade armor in favor of more practical equipment. Each elf wore a hammered iron breastplate and a simple, open-faced helmet. Bronze shields, shaped like hourglasses, hung from each saddlehorn. Every warrior carried a bow, twenty arrows, a sword, a knife, and a heavy javelin that could be used for thrusting or throwing. The horses wore only minimal trapping, as mobility was more important than protection.

Kith-Kanan tucked his gauntlets under his arm as he mounted the steps to the processional entrance of the Tower of the Stars. There stood his father and mother, Sithas and Hermathya, Lady Teralind, Praetor Ulwen in his chair, and Ulvissen. Lord Dunbarth had begged off attending the departure ceremony. He was afflicted with a colic, according to his faithful secretary, Drollo. Kith-Kanan knew that the old rascal had been living it up in the inns and taverns along the riverfront since the treaty had been approved by the emperor of Ergoth and the king of Thorbardin.

The prince ascended the steps in measured tread, keeping his eyes fixed on his father. Sithel was wearing the formal Crown of Stars, a magnificent golden circlet that featured as its central stone the famed Eye of Astarin, the largest emerald in all of Krynn. The gem caught the rays of the midmorning sun and sent flashes of verdant light across the street and gardens.

Beside Sithel stood Lady Nirakina. She was dressed in a gown of palest blue and wore a filigree silver torc around her throat. Her honey-colored hair was held in a silver cloth scarf. There was something sad and remote about her expression-no doubt it was the realization that she was losing her younger son again, after he’d been home less than a month.

Kith-Kanan reached the step just below the landing where the royal family was gathered. He removed his helmet and bowed to his father.

“Noble father, gracious mother,” he said with dignity.

“Stand with me,” said Sithel warmly. Kith-Kanan made the final step and stood beside his father.

“Your mother and I have something to give you,” the speaker said in a private tone. “Open it when you are alone.” Nirakina handed her husband a red silk kerchief, the corners of which were tied together. Sithel pressed this into Kith-Kanan’s hand.

“Now for the public words,” the speaker said with the faintest trace of a smile. Sithel looked out over the crowd. He raised his hand and declaimed, “People of Silvanost! I present you my son, Kith-Kanan, in whose trust I place the peace and safety of the realm.” To Kith-Kanan he asked loudly, “Will you faithfully and honorably discharge the duties of lord constable in all parts of our realm and any other provinces you may enter?”

Loudly and clearly Kith-Kanan replied, “By E’li, I swear I will.” The crowd roared in approval.

Standing apart on the speaker’s left were Sithas and Hermathya. The lady, who was radiantly beautiful in cream white and gold, had a serene expression on her fine-boned face. But Kith-Kanan’s twin smiled on him as he approached for a blessing.

“Good hunting, Kith,” said Sithas warmly. “Show the humans what elven mettle is like!”

“That I’ll do, Sith.” Without warning, Kith-Kanan embraced his brother. Sithas returned Kith-Kanan’s embrace with fervor.

“Keep yourself safe, Brother,” Sithas said softly, then broke away.

Kith-Kanan turned to Hermathya. “Farewell, Lady.”

“Good-bye,” she replied coldly.

Kith-Kanan descended the steps. Mackeli was holding Kijo’s reins. “What did the lady say?” he asked, gazing up at Hermathya with rapt admiration.

“You noticed her, did you?”

“Well, yes! She’s like a sunflower in a hedge of thistles —”

Kith-Kanan swung into the saddle. “By Astarin! You’re starting to sound like a bard! It’s a good thing we’re getting you out of the city. Anaya wouldn’t know you, talking like that!”

The warriors followed Kith-Kanan and Mackeli in ranks of five, wheeling with precision as the prince led them down the curving Processional Road. The assembled Silvanesti let out a roar of approbation, which quickly turned into a steady chant:

“Kith-Ka-nan, Kith-Ka-nan, Kith-Ka-nan...”

The chanting continued as the slow procession wound its way to the riverside. Two ferry barges were waiting for the warriors. Kith-Kanan and the Wildrunners boarded the ferries, and the huge turtles towed them away. The people of Silvanost lined the shore and called out Kith-Kanan’s name until long after the barges were lost against the dark strip of the western riverbank.

Chapter 26

EARLY SUMMER,
YEAR OF THE RAM

Lord Dunbarth’s party loaded all their possessions onto wagons and formed up to depart. Sithas and his honor guard were there to see the dwarven ambassador off.

“Much better weather than when I arrived,” Dunbarth remarked. He was sweating under his woolen coat and vest. Summer was upon

Silvanost, and a warm, humid wind blew in from the river.

“It is indeed,” Sithas said pleasantly. In spite of Dunbarth’s professional caginess, Sithas liked the old dwarf. There was a basic goodness about him.

“You’ll find a case of amber nectar in your carriage,” said the prince. “With the compliments of Lady Nirakina and myself.”

“Ah!” The dwarf looked genuinely touched. “Many thanks, noble prince. I shall be sure to share it with my king. He esteems elven nectar almost as much as Thorbardin ale.”

The ambassador’s escort, augmented by an honor guard of twenty elven warriors, paraded past the wagon. Dunbarth and his secretary, Drollo, climbed into their closed metal coach. As the ambassador pushed back the fine mesh curtains, he extended a ring-heavy hand to Sithas.

“In Thorbardin we wish friends a long life when parting, but I know you’ll outlive me by centuries,” Dunbarth said, a twinkle in his eye. “What do elves say when they part?”

“We say, ‘Blessings of Astarin’ and “May your way be green and golden’,” Sithas replied. He clasped the ambassador’s thick, wrinkled hand.

“May your way be green and golden, then, Prince Sithas. Oh, and some news for you, too. Our Lady Teralind is not what she pretends to be.”

Sithas raised a brow. “Oh?”

“She is Emperor Ullves’s eldest daughter.”

Sithas feigned mild interest. “Really? That’s interesting. Why do you tell me this now, my lord?”

Dunbarth tried to hide his smile. “The dealing is done, so there’s no advantage to my keeping her identity secret. I’ve seen her before, you see. In Daltigoth. Hmm, I thought your noble father might like to know so that he could-um-ah, give her a royal send-off.”

“My lord, you are wise for one so young,” Sithas said, grinning. “Would that I were young!

Farewell, Prince!” Dunbarth rapped on the side of the coach. “Drive on!”

*

When he returned to the palace, Sithas was summoned to the Ergothians’ quarters. There he was awaited by his father, his mother, and her courtier, Tamanier Ambrodel. The prince quickly informed them of the dwarven lord’s revelation.

At one end of the room, Teralind was giving final orders to her servants in a cross, high-pitched voice. Dresses of heavy velvet and delicate lace were being squeezed into crates, which were then nailed shut. Toiletries rattled into rattan hampers.

The strongbox containing Teralind’s jewelry was locked with a stout padlock and given to a soldier to guard personally.

Sithel approached this hectic scene. He halted in the center of the room and clasped his hands behind his back. Lady Teralind had no choice but to leave off her packing and attend the speaker. She combed a strand of hair back from her face and curtsied to Sithel.

“To what do I owe this honor?” she asked in a hurried tone that made it plain she regarded it as no honor at all.

“It’s just come to my attention that I have been remiss in my duty,” Sithel noted with heavy irony. “I greeted you and your husband as befitted an ambassador, when I should have done you more honor. It is not often I have an imperial princess under my roof.”

A twitch passed over Terahnd’s face. “What?” she murmured.

“Surely you don’t deny your father? He is the emperor, after all.”

The tension left the woman’s shoulders. Her back straightened slightly, and she immediately took on a more relaxed and regal attitude. “It doesn’t matter now. You are quite right, Highness. I am Xanille Teralind, first daughter of His Majesty, Ullves X.” She looped the stray strand of hair back again. “How did you find out?”

“Lord Dunbarth recognized you. But why did you hide your identity?” asked Sithel curiously.

“To protect myself,” she averred. “My husband is a helpless invalid. We traveled a long way from Daltigoth, through regions where my father is not loved. Can you imagine the danger we would have faced if every bandit chief and warlord knew I was an imperial princess? We should have needed a hundred times the escort we came with. And how would Your Highness have felt if we had shown up before Silvanost at the head of a thousand warriors?”

“You are right. I would have thought you were trying to intimidate me,” Sithel said genially. He glanced at Tamanier Ambrodel. At the signal, the courtier handed the speaker a small rolled slip of vellum. Although Sithel made a fist around the scroll, he didn’t yet open it.

The prince studied his father, mother, and Tamanier. What were they up to? No one had told him what was going to happen-and yet, something was about to happen, that was plain.

“Where, my lady, is your seneschal?” Sithel asked nonchalantly.

“Ulvissen? Seeing to the loading of my baggage. Why?” The question seemed to put Teralind on the defensive.

“Would you summon him? I wish to speak with the man.”

In short order Ulvissen himself entered from the courtyard where the Ergothians’ wagons were being loaded. He was sweating heavily in his thick wool and leather outfit. In turn he bowed grandly to Teralind and Sithel.

“You wished to speak to me, Highness?” he asked the speaker awkwardly.

“Yes. Since this is a day of revelations, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be part of them.” Sithel opened his hand, displaying the slip of vellum. “I have here a report prepared by Prince Kith-Kanan before his departure to the West. In it, he describes a half-human bandit he met in the wilderness, Voltorno by name. Many months ago, he encountered this Voltorno in the company of a band of humans. He states that you were one of these men.”

Ulvissen looked from the small scroll to the speaker’s face, but betrayed no guilt. “No offense intended, great speaker, but your son is mistaken. I have never been to Silvanesti prior to coming as my lady’s seneschal,” he said evenly.

“Mistakes are possible, even by Kith-Kanan,” Sithel said, closing his fingers around the parchment again. “Which is why I had my scribes search the archives of the Temple of Kiri Jolith. There are kept accounts of all wars and battles fought since the dawn of time. And whose name should be found as high admiral of the Ergothian fleet, but one Guldur Ul Vissen? A name strangely similar to your own, wouldn’t you agree? Since your princess saw fit to come here in disguise, it does not tax belief to think you may have also.” The speaker clasped his hands behind his back. “What have you to say, Master Ulvissen?”

Ulvissen regarded the Speaker of the Stars with utter coolness. “Your Highness is mistaken,” he said firmly. “A similarity of names proves nothing. Vissen is a common name in Ergoth.”

“Do you agree, Lady?”

Teralind flinched. “Yes. What is the point? I’ve told you why I pretended to be someone else. But my seneschal is who he claims to be.”

Sithel tucked the parchment into his sash. “As an imperial princess, please go with my best wishes and every hope of safety, but do not bring your ‘seneschal’ to Silvanost again. Do you understand?” The harsh tone was unusual for the speaker. “Those who despoil my country and kill my subjects are not welcome in my city or my house. Please let this be known when you arrive in Daltigoth, Lady.”

With that, the speaker turned on his heel and walked away. Nirakina. Followed. Tamanier bowed and did likewise. Sithas, wide-eyed, went last.

In the rotunda outside the humans’ quarters, Sithel turned to his wife with a broad smile on his face. He shook a fist at the ceiling.

“At last!” he said fiercely. “I’ve given that contentious woman her own back!” He turned to Tamanier. “You have been of great service to me. You shall be rewarded.”

Tamanier blinked and bowed. “I seek only to serve Your Highness and Lady Nirakina,” he said.

“So you shall.” Sithel pondered for a moment, stroking his pointed chin. “I wish to appoint you chamberlain of the court. The management of daily court life shall fall to you. You will be known as Lord Ambrodel, and your clan shall have the right to inherit the title.” The speaker folded his arms and asked, “What say you to that, Lord Ambrodel?”

Tamanier gaped like a startled child. At last he collected himself and dropped to one knee. “I thank you, Highness,” he said humbly. “I will serve you to the end of my days!”

“I think my days will end before yours,” Sithel said wryly. “But you can serve my son after.”

Laughing, the royal family and their new chamberlain left the rotunda. Sithas put a hand on Tamanier Ambrodel’s arm.

“A word, my new lord,” Sithas said in a confidential whisper, pulling him aside.

“Yes?” said Tamanier discreetly.

“Let us go to a more private location.”

They left the palace. Outside, the air was sweet with flowers and the marble walks were covered with blossoms fallen from the trees. Sithas said nothing until they were some distance from any observers.

“You know someone in the palace has been giving information to the Ergothians,” Sithas said conspiratorially, looking eastward to the fine houses of the nobility. “I would appreciate it if you would help me find out who the traitor is.”

“I’ll do what I can, noble prince,” said Tamanier earnestly.

“Good. As chamberlain, you’ll have access to every part of the palace. I want you to use your authority to root out the spy and reveal him to me.” Sithas paused and looked straight at Tamanier. “But be wise. I don’t want the wrong person accused. And I don’t want the culprit alerted.”

“Do you have any suspects?” asked Tamanier.

“Officially, no. Personally, yes,” Sithas said grimly. “I suspect my own wife, Lady Hermathya.”

“Your wife!” Tamanier was so shocked he could hardly believe what he had heard. “Surely, noble prince, your wife loves you. She would not betray you to the humans!”

Sithas rubbed his hands slowly together. “I only have suspicions. All I can say about Hermathya’s motives is that she so loves attention and the cheers of the people, that she spends huge amounts of money to keep their favor. I do not give her coins to scatter in the streets, yet she never seems to lack for money.”

Shocked, yet pitying the prince at the same time, Tamanier asked, “Do you suspect anyone else?”

“Yes, and perhaps he is the stronger candidate. His name is Vedvedsica. He is a sorcerer and a priest, he claims, of Gilean the Gray Voyager. My father sometimes uses his clairvoyant skills, but Vedvedsica is a greedy conniver who would do anything for gold or power.”

“The emperor of Ergoth has plenty of gold,” Tamanier said sagely.

They talked for several minutes more. Tamanier vowed to detect the traitor, and Sithas listened approvingly, nodded, then walked away. The newly created chamberlain was left in the east garden, surrounded by fallen petals and singing birds.

*

The farmers were apprehensive when they first saw the column of armed warriors ride by, but when they realized who the Wildrunners were, they came to greet these newcomers. Along the way, Kith-Kanan sent troopers to help one farmer to fell a tree, another to free an ox from a boggy ditch, and a third to mend a fence. Word of these kindnesses spread ahead of the Wildrunners’ march and increased the number of enthusiastic elves-Silvanesti and Kagonesti-who came out to greet Kith-Kanan and his troops.

For the next few days, the way of the march was lined with grateful farmers and their families, bearing gifts of new nectar, smoked meat, and fruit. Wreaths of flowers were hung around the Wildrunners’ necks. Kith-Kanan’s mount Kijo was draped with a garland of white roses. At one point, the prince ordered his pipers to play a lively tune, and the Wildrunners passed through the countryside in a swirl of music, flowers, and smiling settlers. It was more like a festival than a military expedition. Some of the more veteran warriors were astonished.

Now, ten days from Silvanost, sitting around the blazing campfire, warriors asked Kith-Kanan why he was making such a show of helping the farmers and herders they met.

“Well,” he explained, stirring his soup with a wooden spoon, “if this militia idea is to succeed, the people must see us as their friends and not just their protectors. You see, our ranks will be filled by the same farmers, woodcutters, and herders we help along the way. They will be the troops, and all of you will be their leaders.”

“Is it true we’re to take in humans and dwarves in the ranks?” asked a captain with some distaste.

“It is,” said Kith-Kanan.

“Can we rely on such fighters? I mean, we all know humans can fight, and the dwarves are stout fellows, but will they obey orders to attack and slay fellow humans or dwarves if those orders come from an elf?” asked one of the older sergeants.

“They will, or they’ll be expelled from the militia, and lose its protection,” Kith-Kamm responded. “You ask if humans will serve us by fighting humans. Some will, some won’t. We’ll be fighting elves, too, I expect. I’ve heard tales of robber bands made up of humans, Kagonesti, and even mixed-bloods. If they rob, if they kill, then we will bring them to justice. We make no distinctions out here.”

Sleep followed dinner, and guards were posted. The horses were corralled in the center of the camp, and one by one the lamps went out in the Wildrunners’ tents.

Mackeli usually slept at Kith-Kanan’s side, and that night was no exception. Though the boy often slept soundly, the months he’d spent out of the old forest hadn’t completely dulled his senses; he was the first one to sense something amiss. He sat up in the dark tent and rubbed his eyes, unsure of what had roused him. He heard nothing, but he saw something very odd.

Pink shadows wavered inside the tent. Mackeli saw his own hand, washed pink by an unknown light. He slowly raised his head and saw that a red circle of light showed through the tent’s canvas roof. A glare of heat on his face, Mackeli had no idea what the red glow portended, but he was sure it wasn’t friendly. He shook Kith-Kanan awake.

“Wha – What is it?” mumbled the prince.

“Look!” hissed Mackeli.

Kith-Kanan blinked at the red glow. He brushed the long hair from his eyes and threw back his blanket. In lieu of the sword he’d broken in the wildwood, he’d brought along a fine new weapon. Mackeli drew his own sword from its scabbard as, warily, Kith-Kanan lifted the flap on the tent with the tip of his blade.

Hovering over the camp, about twenty feet in the air, was a ball of red fire the size of a cart wheel. The crackling red light covered the camp. Kith-Kanan immediately felt a prickling sensation on his skin when the red glow touched him.

“What is it?” asked Mackeli wonderingly.

“I don’t know...”

The elf prince looked across the camp. The sentries were frozen, one foot raised in midstep, mouths open in the act of giving the alarm. Their eyes stared ahead, unblinking. Even the horses were rooted in place, some with hooves raised and necks arched in odd angles.

“They’re all paralyzed somehow,” Kith-Kanan said in awe. “This is evil magic!”

“Why aren’t we paralyzed?” Mackeli asked, but Kith-Kanan had no answer to that.

Through the line of tents shadowy figures moved. Blood-colored light sparkled on naked sword blades. Kith-Kanan and Mackeli ducked down behind a tent. The shadow figures came on. There were five of them. By their clothing, features, and coloring, Kith-Kanan saw they were raffish Kagonesti. He held a finger to his lips, warning Mackeli to remain silent.

The Kagonesti approached the tent Kith-Kanan and Mackeli had been sleeping in minutes before.

“Is this the tent?” hissed one of them.

“Yeah,” replied the leading elf. His face was heavily scarred, and instead of a left hand, he had a cruel-looking metal hook.

“Let’s be done with it an’ get outta here,” said a third Kagonesti. Hook-Hand made a snarling sound in his throat.

“Don’t be so hasty,” he advised. “There’s plenty of time for the kill and to fill our pockets besides.”

With sign language, Kith-Kanan indicated to Mackeli that he should circle around behind the band of magic-wielding killers. The boy vanished like a ghost, barefoot and wearing only his trousers. Kith-Kanan rose to his feet.

Hook-Hand had just ordered his men to surround the prince’s tent. The killers slashed the ropes holding the tent up. As the canvas cone collapsed, the five killers waded in, hacking and stabbing through the tent cloth.

Suddenly, with a shout, Mackeli burst from concealment and bravely attacked the gang. He ran the first one through, even as that elf was turning to face him. Kith-Kanan gritted his teeth. Mackeli had attacked too rashly, so the prince had to rush his own attack. With a shout, Kith-Kanan entered the fray; he felled a mace-wielding killer with his first stroke. Hook-Hand kicked through the slashed canvas of the fallen tent to get clear. “That’s him, boys!” he shouted as he retreated. “Finish’em!”

From five, the villains were now down to three. Two of the Kagonesti went for Mackeli, leaving Hook-Hand and Kith-Kanan to duel. The scar-faced elf cut and thrust with deadly efficiency

Snatching up a cut length of rope with his hook, he lashed at Kith-Kanan. The knotted end stung hard against the prince’s cheek.

Mackeli was not doing well against the other two. Already they had cut him on his left knee and right arm. Sweat sheened his body in the weird crimson glow. When the killer on his left thrust straight at him, Mackeli beat his blade and counterthrust into his opponent’s chest. This moment of triumph was shortlived. The other attacker stabbed Mackeli before the boy could free his blade. Cold iron touched his heart, and he fell to the ground.

“I got ‘im!” shouted the victorious killer.

“Ya fool, that ain’t the prince-this is! Help me get ‘im!” Hook-Hand shouted back, out of breath.

But Mackeli managed to heave himself up with great effort and stab his foe in the leg. With a scream, the Kagonesti went down. He fell against Hook-Hand’s back, throwing his chief off balance. That was all Kith-Kanan needed. Ignoring the flailing rope, he closed in and rammed his blade through the assassin. Hook-Hand let out a slow, rattling gasp and died as he fell.

Mackeli lay face-down in the dirt. His right arm was outstretched, still clutching his sword. Kith-Kanan threw himself down by the boy. He gently turned him over and then felt his own heart constrict. Mackeli’s bare chest was covered with blood.

“Say something, Keli!” he begged. “Don’t die!”

Mackeli’s eyes were open. He looked at Kith-Kanan, and a frown tugged one corner of his mouth.

“This time... I can’t obey, Kith,” he said weakly. The life left his body with a shuddering sigh. Sightlessly his green eyes continued to gaze up at his friend.

An anguished sob wracked Kith-Kanan. He clutched Mackeli to him and wept. What curse was he under? How had he offended the gods? Now all of his family from the wildwood was gone. All gone. His tears mingled with Mackeli’s blood.

A sound penetrated Kith-Kanan’s grief; the brute that Mackeli had stabbed in the leg groaned. Kith-Kanan lowered the boy’s body to the ground and gently closed his eyes. Then, with a growl, he grabbed the wounded mercenary by the tunic and dragged him to his feet.

“Who sent you?” he snarled. “Who sent you to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” gasped the elf. He trembled on his injured leg. “Mercy, great lord! I’m just a hireling!”

Kith-Kanan shook him by the shirt front, his face twisted into a hideous mask of rage. “You want mercy? Here’s mercy: tell me who hired you, and I’ll cut your throat. Don’t tell me, and it will take far longer for you to die!”

“I’ll tell, I’ll tell!” babbled the terrified elf. Kith-Kanan threw him to the ground. The light from the fireball suddenly grew more intense. The elf let out a scream and threw an arm over his face. Kith-Kanan turned in time to see the fiery globe come hurtling at them. As he leaped aside, the fireball hit the wounded elf. There was a thunderclap, and the globe exploded.

Slowly, sight and hearing returned to Kith-Kanan, and darkness reclaimed the camp. The prince raised his head and found that his right arm and leg were scorched from the fireball’s impact. The wounded elf was gone, vaporized.

*

Mackeli was buried in a simple grave on the banks of the Khalkist River. The Wildrunners laid his sword across his chest, as was the custom with elven warriors. At the head of his grave, in lieu of a marker, Kith-Kanan planted the sprig of oak he’d snipped from Anaya’s tree. All this time it had remained green. The prince was certain the sprig would grow into a fine tree, and that Mackeli and Anaya would be united somehow in renewed life once more.

As the camp was breaking up, Kith-Kanan fingered the small ring he now wore on his left little finger. This was the ring Silvanos had given to his great general Balif during the Dragon War. Sithel had passed the ring on to his son as a parting gift; it had been wrapped in the red silk handkerchief the speaker had passed to his son. Kith-Kanan had donned the ring with pride, but now he wondered if it was an unintentional portent of tragedy. After all, Balif had been murdered by his rivals, certain high-ranking elves who resented the kender’s influence with Silvanos. Now similar treachery had struck at Kith-Kanan and had taken his young friend.

With somber diligence the Wildrunners struck their tents. When they were done, the senior captain, a Kagonesti named Piradon, came to Kith-Kanan.

“Highness, all is ready,” he announced.

Kith-Kanan studied the captain’s face. Like all the Kagonesti who served in the royal guard, Piradon did not wear skin paint. It made his face seem naked.

“Very well,” he said flatly. “The usual columns of four, and I want outriders ahead, behind, and on both flanks. No one’s going to surprise us again.”

Kith-Kanan put a foot in his stirrup and swung a leg over his horse. He slapped the reins against his horse’s rump and cantered down to the road. The golden ring of Balif felt tight on his finger, making his pulse throb in his fingertip. The prince decided then that the feeling would stand as a constant reminder of Mackeli’s death and of his own vulnerability.

Chapter 27

HIGH SUMMER,
YEAR OF THE RAM

Deprived of Anaya and bereft of Mackeli, Kith-Kanan threw himself into his duty with a will that would have astonished those who had known him as a callow, self-centered youth. He drove his warriors as hard as he drove himself, and in weeks molded them into a quick-thinking, quick-acting force.

Two months passed. High summer came to the plain, and the days grew very hot. Daily thunderstorms soaked the steaming plains and green forest, quenching the thirsty land so bursting with life. Grass grew on the plain as tall as a grown elf’s shoulder; so tall, in fact, that the herders had to cut swaths through it with scythes twice weekly. Vines and bracken choked the paths in the forest, making travel difficult, but the Wildrunners were too busy to complain. Tall mountains of clouds, like castles of white smoke, passed serenely overhead as the Wildrunners set up camp in order to construct a new armory; one Kith-Kanan had already dubbed Sithelbec.

Militia outposts like the one under construction had been established all across the plain in the past eight weeks, and settlers of every race flocked to their standards. Humans, elves, kender, dwarves-they were all tired of being victims, subject to the whims of the roving robbers. The captains and sergeants of the Wildrunners drilled them with pikes and shields, and showed them how to stand up to the mounted brigands. Everywhere Kith-Kanan’s force stopped, an armory was founded. Stout stone houses were built by the Wildrunners, and there all the militia’s weapons were stored. At the sounding of a gong, all able-bodied people in the locale would rush to the arsenal and arm themselves. In an attack, the Wildrunner officers stationed close at hand would lead them out to repel the raiders.

By a few weeks before midsummer, the south and central plains had been pacified. In most cases, the brigands hadn’t even stayed around to fight the new militia. They’d simply vanished. Parnigar, eldest of the sergeants, had pronounced himself dissatisfied with the results of the campaign, however.

“What fault can you find?” Kith-Kanan had asked his trusted aide, the closest person to him since Mackeli’s death. “I’d say we were succeeding far better than we could have hoped.”

“Aye, that’s the problem, sir. The brigands have given up too easily. They’ve scarcely tried to test us,” Parnigar countered.

“Just shows that thieves have no stomach for honest combat.” The old soldier nodded politely, but it was plain he had not been convinced.

The construction of Sithelbec began with a stockade of logs around the inner blockhouse of stone. Here, at the edge of the western forest, Kith-Kanan planned to extend law and order.

Inside the forest, however, was a different proposition. There were many elves of the Kagonesti race living in the woods, but they were hardy and independent and did not take kindly to armed soldiers on their land. These woods elves got along much better with their human neighbors than they did with the Kagonesti under Kith-Kanan’s command. Worse, the western woods elves scorned the prince’s offers of protection.

“Who do we need protection from?” they had asked scornfully when confronted. “The only invaders we see are you.”

The woods elves spat on Kith-Kanan’s representatives or threw stones at them, then melted into the trees.

The Wildrunners were all for going into the forest and converting the stubborn woods elves at the point of a sword, but Kith-Kanan would not allow it. Their success was built upon the trust the common people had in them; if they turned tyrannical, everything they’d accomplished would be for naught. It would take time, but the prince believed that he could even win over the wild Kagonesti.

As work on Sithelbec continued, Kith-Kanan received a dispatch from his father. The Speaker of the Stars had accepted the prince’s invitation to the outpost. Sithel was coming, accompanied by Sithas and a caravan of guards and courtiers.

Kith-Kanan studied the dispatch, penned by his twin. The speaker’s retinue was large and slow-moving; it would be at least two weeks before they reached Sithelbec. Even with that grace period, the fortress would not be finished in time. Kith-Kanan exhorted his warriors to do their best, but to save their strength for fighting-even though bandits were becoming as rare as cool breezes in the hot and steamy summer nights.

*

The work was still unfinished when the banner of the speaker’s party appeared on the horizon. Kith-Kanan called in all his patrols and formed his warriors before the gates of Sithelbec.

The Wildrunners looked on in awe as the speaker’s party came into view. First came forty guards on horseback, armed with long lances. Pennants fluttered from their lance tips. Behind them came an honor guard of nobles, sixty-two of them, bearing the banners of Silvanos’s clan, the city of Silvanost, the great temples, the major guilds, and the lesser towns of Silvanesti. The nobles formed a square behind the line of lancers. Next came Sithas and his entourage, all clad in scarlet and white. Finally, the Speaker of the Stars rode up, flanked by one hundred courtiers wearing the speaker’s colors. The tail of the procession consisted of the rest of the guards and all the baggage wagons.

“By Astarin,” muttered Kith-Kanan. “Is there anyone left in Silvanost?”

The nobles parted ranks, the lancers moved to one side, and Sithas rode forward. “Greetings, Brother. Is everything in order?” asked the heir to the throne.

Kith-Kanan grinned. “Not everything,” he said, looking up at Sithas. “But we’re doing well enough.”

The leader of the Wildrunners strode through the blocks of mounted elves toward his father.

Soldiers, nobles, and courtiers parted for him with mechanical precision. There was Sithel, astride a splendid white charger, his golden mantle draped across the animal’s rump. The crown of Silvanos sparkled on his brow.

Kith-Kanan bowed from the waist. “Hail, great speaker!”

“Hail to you, my son.” Sithel waved the emerald and ivory scepter of Silvanos, and Kith-Kanan straightened, “How have you been?”

“Mostly well, Father. The militia has been a great success. Incidents of marauding have ceased and, until recently, everyone we met was with us.”

Sithel laid the scepter in the crook of his arm. “Until recently?” he asked with a frown.

“Yes. The inhabitants of the woods are not eager for our help. I believe we can eventually win them to our side, though.”

The speaker’s charger shook its head and did a slow half-circle. A groom ran forward to hold the animal’s bridle as Sithel patted his horse’s snowy neck.

“I would hear more about this,” he said solemnly. Kith-Kanan took the bridle from the groom and led his father’s mount toward the unfinished fortress.

*

The vast formation of soldiers and courtiers dispersed, and a regular tent city grew up on the plain in and around the stockade of Sithelbec. The speaker moved into the incomplete keep, as did Sithas. There, on a rough table of green oak planks, Kith-Kanan served them dinner and told them about the problems they’d been having winning the confidence of the woods elves.

“The impudence of it,” Sithas complained vehemently. “I think you should go in and drag the wretches out.”

Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe his ears. “And make them blood enemies forever, Sith? I know the Kagonesti. They prize freedom above all things and won’t submit even with a sword at their throat. Unless we’re willing to burn down the whole forest, we’ll never flush them out. It’s their element; they know every inch of it. Most of all, it’s their home.”

There was a moment of silence, then Sithel broke it.

“How is the hunting?” he asked pleasantly.

“Outstanding,” Kith-Kanan said, glad of the change in subject. “The woods are fairly bursting with game, Father.”

They gossiped a bit about life back in the city. Lady Nirakina and Tamanier Ambrodel were continuing their efforts on behalf of the homeless. The new Market was almost finished. Given the huge abundance of the coming harvest, even the new, expanded Market would be taxed to handle the volume.

“How is Hermathya?” Kith-Kanan asked politely.

Sithas shrugged, “As well as always. She spends too much and still craves the adoration of the common folk.”

They made plans for a boar hunt that would take place on the morrow. Only a small party would go-the speaker, Sithas, Kith-Kanan, Kencathedrus, another royal guard, Parnigar, and half a dozen favored courtiers. They would assemble at dawn and ride into the forest armed with lances. No beaters or hounds would be used. The speaker viewed such measures as unsporting.

*

Though the sun had not yet shown itself, there was an early heat in the air, a promise of the stifling day to come. Kith-Kanan stood by a small campfire with Parnigar, eating some bread and porridge. Sithas and Sithel emerged from the half-built keep, dressed in drab brown hunting clothes.

“Good morning,” Kith-Kanan said energetically.

“Going to be hot, I think,” appraised Sithel. A servant appeared silently at his elbow with a cup of cool apple cider. A second servant offered Sithas similar refreshment.

The courtiers appeared, looking ill at ease in their borrowed hunting clothes. Kencathedrus and Parnigar were more lethal looking. The commander leaned on his lance with an easy grace, seeming fully awake, the benefit of many years rising before the sun. The hunting party ate in relative silence, chewing bread and cheese, spooning porridge quickly, and washing everything down with cider.

Sithel finished first. He thrust his empty cup and plate at a servant and took a lance from the pyramid of weapons stacked outside the keep.

“To horse,” he announced. “The prey awaits!”

The speaker mounted with ease and swung the long ash lance in a broad circle around his head. Kith-Kanan couldn’t help but smile at his father who, despite his age and dignity, was more expert with horse and lance than any of them, except perhaps Kencathedrus and Parnigar.

Sithas was a fair horseman, but fumbled with the long lance and reins. The courtiers, more used to loose robes and tight protocol, wobbled aboard their animals. The nervous animals were made more so by the lances bobbing and dancing just behind their heads.

Forming a triangle with Sithel in the lead, the party rode toward the forest, half a mile away. Dew was thick on the tall grass, and crickets sang until the horses drew near. The silver rim of Solinari could been seen on the western horizon.

Sithas rode on the speaker’s left. Kith-Kanan rode on his father’s right, resting the butt of his lance in his stirrup cup. They rode at an easy pace, not wanting to tire the horses too early. If they flushed a boar, they’d need all the speed they could muster from their chargers.

“I haven’t been hunting in sixty years,” Sithel said, breathing deeply of the morning air. “When I was your age, all the young bucks had to have a boar’s head on their clan hall wall to show everyone how virile they were.” Sithel smiled. “I still remember how I got my first boar. Shenbarrus, Hermathya’s father, and I used to go to the marshes at the mouth of the Thon-Thalas. Marsh boar were reputed to be the fiercest of the fierce, and we thought we’d be the most famous hunters in Silvanost if we came back with a trophy. Shenbarrus was a lot thinner and more active in those days. He and I went down river by boat. We landed on Fairgo Island and immediately started tracking a large beast.”

“You were on foot?” asked Kith-Kanan, incredulous.

“Couldn’t get a horse on the island, son. It was too marshy. So Shenbarrus and I went in the spikerod thickets, armed with spears and brass bucklers. We got separated and the next thing I knew, I was alone in the marsh, with ominous rustlings in the bushes around me. I called out: ‘Shenbarrus! Is that you?’ There was no answer. I called again; still no answer. By then I was certain the noise I’d heard was a boar. I raised my spear high and thrust it through the thick brush. There was a scream such as mortal elf never heard, and Shenbarrus came pounding through the spikerod into the open. I’d jabbed him in, hmm, the seat of his robe.”

Kith-Kanan laughed. Sithas laughed and asked, “So you never got your marsh boar?”

“Oh, I did!” Sithel said. “Shenbarrus’s yells flushed a monster of a pig out of the brush. He ran right at us. Despite his painful wound Shenbarrus stabbed first. The pig thrashed and tore up the clearing. I got my spear back and finished the beast off.”

“Who got the head?” asked Sithas.

“Shenbarrus. He drew first blood, so it was only right,” said his father warmly.

Kith-Kanan had been in Hermathya’s father’s house many times and had seen the fierce boar’s head in the dining hall over the fireplace. He thought of old Shenbarrus getting poked in the “seat of his robe” and he burst out laughing all over again.

The sky had lightened to pink by the time they reached the dark wall of trees. The party spread out, far enough apart for easy movement, but near enough to stay in sight of one another. All idle talk ceased.

The sun rose behind them, throwing long shadows through the trees. Kith-Kanan sweated in his cotton tunic and mopped his face with his sleeve. His father was ahead to his left, Parnigar slightly behind to his right.

Being in the forest again brought Anaya irresistibly to mind. Kith-Kanan saw her again, lithe and lively, flitting through the trees as silent as a ghost. He remembered her brusque manners, her gentle repose, and the way she felt in his arms. That he remembered best of all.

The heavy rains of summer had washed the sandy soil of the forest away, leaving chuckholes and protruding roots. Kith-Kanan let his horse pick its way along, but the animal misjudged its footing and hit a hole. The horse stumbled and recovered, but Kith-Kanan lost his seat and tumbled to the ground. The stump of a broken sapling gouged him in the back, and he lay there for a moment, stunned.

His vision cleared and he saw Parnigar leaning over him. “Are you all right, sir?” the old sergeant asked concernedly.

“Yes, just dazed. How’s my horse?”

The animal stood a few yards away, cropping moss. His right foreleg was held painfully off the ground.

Parnigar helped Kith-Kanan stand as the last of the hunting party passed by. Kencathedrus, in the rear, asked if they needed any help.

“No,” Kith-Kanan said quickly. “Go on. I’ll see to my horse.”

The horse’s lower leg was bruised but, with care, it wouldn’t be a crippling injury. Parnigar offered Kith-Kanan his horse, so he could catch up to the rest.

“No, thank you, Sergeant. They’re too far ahead. If I go galloping after them, I’ll scare off any game in the area “He put a hand to his aching back.

Parnigar asked, “Shall I stay with you, sir?”

“I think you’d better. I may have to walk back to Sithelbec from here.” His back stabbed at him again, and he winced.

The news that Kith-Kanan had dropped out was passed ahead. The speaker expressed regret that his son would miss the hunt. But this was a rare day, and the expedition should continue. Sithel’s course through the trees meandered here and there, taking the path best suited to his horse. At more than one place he paused to examine tracks in the moss or mud. Wild pig, definitely.

It was hot, but the elves welcomed such heat-for it was a good change from the ever-present coolness of the Quinari Palace and the Tower of the Stars. While Silvanost was constantly bathed in fresh breezes, the heat of the plains made the speaker’s limbs feel looser and more supple, his head clearer. He reveled in the sense of freedom he felt out here and urged his horse on.

In the far distance, Sithel heard the call of a hunting horn. Such horns meant humans, and that meant dogs. Sure enough, the sound of barking came very faintly to his ears. Elves never used dogs, but humans rarely went into the woods without them. Human eyesight and hearing being so poor, Sithel reckoned they needed the animals to find any game at all.

The horns and dogs would likely frighten off any boar in the area. In fact, the dogs would flush everything-boar, deer, rabbits, foxes-out of hiding. Sithel shifted his lance back to his stirrup cup and sniffed. Humans were so unsporting.

There was a noise in the sumac behind and to his right. Sithel turned his horse around, lowered the tip of his lance, and poked through the bushes. A wild pheasant erupted from the green leaves, bleating shrilly. Laughing, the speaker calmed his prancing horse.

Sithas and a courtier named Timonas were close enough to see each other when the hunting horn sounded. The prince also realized that it meant humans in the woods. The idea filled him with alarm. He tightened his reins and spurred his horse in a tight circle, looking for other members of the party. The only one he could spot was Timonas.

“Can you see anyone?” Sithas called. The courtier shouted back that he could not.

Sithas’s alarm increased. It was inexplicable, but he felt a dangerous presentiment. In the heat of the summer morning, the prince shivered.

“Father!” he called. “Speaker, where are you?”

Ahead, the speaker had decided to turn back. Any boar worth bagging had long since left these woods, driven off by the humans. He retraced his path and heard Sithas’s call from not too far away.

“Oh, don’t shout,” he muttered irritably. “I’m coming.”

Catching up to him, Sithas pushed through a tangle of vines and elm saplings. As the prince spurred his mount toward the speaker, the feeling of danger was still with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of metal in a stand of cedar.

Then he saw the arrow in flight.

Before Sithas could utter the cry that rose to his lips, the arrow had struck Sithel in the left side, below his ribs. The Speaker of the Stars dropped his lance and pitched forward, but he did not fall from the saddle. A scarlet stain spread out from the arrow, running down the leg of Sithel’s trousers.

Timonas rode up on Sithas’s left. “See to the speaker!” Sithas cried. He slapped his horse’s flank with the reins and bore down on the cedar trees. Lance lowered, he burst through the dark green curtain. A quick glimpse of a white face, and he brought the handguard of his lance down on the archer’s head. The archer pitched forward on his face.

The royal guardsman accompanying the party appeared. “Come here! Watch this fellow!” Sithas shouted at him and then rode hard to where Timonas supported Sithel on his horse.

“Father,” Sithas said breathlessly. “Father...”

The speaker stared in wordless shock. He could say nothing as he reached a bloody hand to his son.

Gently Sithas and Timonas lowered the speaker to the ground. The rest of the hunting party quickly collected around them. The courtiers argued whether to remove the arrow, but Sithas silenced them all as Kencathedrus studied the wound. The look he gave the prince was telling. Sithas Understood.

“Father,” Sithas said desperately, “can you speak?”

Sithel’s lips parted, but no sound came. His hazel eyes seemed full of puzzlement. At last, his hand touched his son’s face, and he breathed his last. The hand fell to the ground.

The elves stood around their fallen monarch in abject disbelief. The one who had ruled them for three hundred and twenty-three years lay dead at their feet.

Kencathedrus had retrieved the fallen archer from the guardsman who watched him. The commander dragged the unconscious fellow by the back of his collar to where Sithel lay. “Sire, look at this,” he said. He rolled the inert figure over.

The archer was human. His carrot-colored hair was short and spiky, leaving his queerly rounded ears plainly visible. There was a stubble of orange beard on his chin.

“Murder,” muttered one of the courtiers. “The humans have killed our speaker!”

“Be silent!” Sithas said angrily. “Show some respect for the dead.” To Kencathedrus he declared, “When he wakes we will find out who he is and why he did this.”

“Perhaps it was an accident,” cautioned Kencathedrus, inspecting the man. “His bow is a hunting weapon, not a war bow.”

“He took aim! I saw him,” Sithas said hotly. “My father was mounted on a white horse! Who could mistake him?”

The human groaned. Courtiers surrounded him and dragged him to his feet. They were not very gentle about it. By the time they finished shaking and pummeling him, it was a wonder he opened his eyes at all.

“You have killed the Speaker of the Stars!” Sithas demanded furiously, “Why?”

“No —” gasped the man.

He was forced to his knees. “I saw you!” Sithas insisted. “How can you deny it? Why did you do it?”

“I swear, Lord —”

Sithas could barely think or feel. His senses reeled with the fact that his beloved father was dead.

“Get him ready to travel,” the prince ordered numbly. “We will take him back to the fortress and question him properly there.”

“Yes, Speaker,” said Timonas.

Sithas froze. It was true. Even as his father’s blood ran into the ground, he was the rightful speaker. He could feel the burden of rulership settle about him like a length of chain laid across his shoulders. He had to be strong now, strong and wise, like his father.

“What about your father?” Kencathedrus asked gently.

“I will carry him.” Sithas put his arms under his father’s lifeless body and picked it up.

They walked out of the grove, the human with his arms wrenched behind him, the courtiers leading their horses, and Sithas carrying his dead father. As they came, the sound of hunting horns grew louder and the barking of dogs sounded behind them. Before the party had gone another quarter-mile, a band of mounted humans, armed with bows, appeared. There were at least thirty of them, and as they spread out around the party of elves, the Silvanesti slowed and stopped.

One human picked his way to Sithas. He wore a visored helmet, no doubt to protect his face from intruding branches. The man flipped the visor up, and Sithas started in surprise. He knew that face.

It was Ulvissen, the human who had acted as seneschal to Princess Teralind.

“What has happened here?” Ulvissen asked grimly, taking in the scene.

“The Speaker of the Stars has been murdered,” Sithas replied archly. “By that man.”

Ulvissen looked beyond Sithas and saw the archer with his arms pinioned. “You must be mistaken. That man is my forester, Dremic,” he said firmly. “He is no murderer. This was obviously an accident.”

“Accident? That’s not an acceptable answer. I am speaker now, and I say that this assassin will face Silvanesti justice.”

Ulvissen leaned forward in his saddle. “I do not think so, Highness. Dremic is my man. If he is to be punished, I will see to it,” he said strongly.

“No,” disagreed Sithas.

The elves drew together. Some still carried their lances, others had courtly short swords at their waists. Kencathedrus held his sword to the neck of the human archer, Dremic. The standoff was tense.

Before anyone could act, though, a shrill two-tone whistle cut the air. Sithas felt relief well up inside him. Sure enough, through the trees came Kith-Kanan at the head of a company of the militia’s pikemen. The prince rode forward to where Sithas stood, holding their father in his arms.

Kith-Kanan’s face twisted. “I – I am too late!” he cried in anguish.

“Too late for one tragedy, but not too late to prevent another,” Sithas said. Quickly he told his twin what had happened and what was about to happen.

“I heard the hunting horns at Sithelbec,” Kith-Kanan said. “I thought there might be a clash, so I mustered the First Company. But this-if only I had stayed, kept up with Father —”

“We must have our man back, Highness,” Ulvissen insisted. His hunting party nocked arrows.

Sithas shook his head. Before he’d even finished the gesture, some of the humans loosed arrows. Kith-Kanan shouted an order, and his pikemen charged. The humans, with no time to reload, bolted. In seconds, not one human could be seen, though the sound of their horses galloping away could be heard clearly.

Kith-Kanan halted the militia and called the Wildrunners back to order. Kencathedrus had been hit in the thigh. The unfortunate Dremic had been shot by his own people and now lay dead on the grass.

“We must get back to Silvanost, quickly,” Sithas advised, “Not only to bury our father but to tell the people of war!”

Before the confused Kith-Kanan could question or protest, he was shocked to hear his own Wildrunners cheer Sithas’s inflammatory words. The humans’ cowardly flight had aroused their blood. Some were even ready to hunt down the humans in the forest, but Kith-Kanan reminded them that their duty was to their dead speaker and their comrades back at the fort.

They marched out of the woods, a solemn parade, bearing the bodies of the fallen on their horses. The dead human, Dremic, was left where he lay. A shocked and silent garrison greeted them at Sithelbec. Sithel was dead. Sithas was speaker. Everyone wondered if the cause of peace had died with the great and ancient leader.

Kith-Kanan readied his warriors in defensive positions in case of attack. Watch was kept throughout the night, but it proved to be a peaceful one. After midnight, when he’d finished his work for the day, Kith-Kanan went to the shell of the unfinished keep, where Sithas knelt by the body of their slain father.

“The Wildrunners are prepared should an attack come,” he said softly.

Sithas did not raise his head. “Thank you.”

Kith-Kanan looked down at his father’s still face. ‘Did he suffer?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He could not speak.”

Hands clenched into fists, Kith-Kanan wept. “This is my fault! His safety was my duty! I urged him to come here. I encouraged him to go hunting.”

“And you weren’t present when he was ambushed.” said Sithas calmly.

Kith-Kanan reacted blindly. He seized his twin by the back of his robe and hauled him to his feet. Spinning him around, he snarled, “You were there, and what good did it do him?”

Sithas gripped Kith-Kanan’s fists and pulled them loose from his shirt. With angry precision, he said, “I am speaker. I am. I am the leader of the elven nation, so you serve me now, Brother. You can no longer fly off to the forest. And do not trouble me about the rights of Kagonesti or halfhuman trash.”

Kith-Kanan let out a breath, long and slow. The twin he loved was swamped by hatred and grief, he told himself as he looked into Sithas’s stormy eyes. With equal precision he answered, “You are my speaker. You are my liege lord, and I shall obey you even unto death.” It was the ancient oath of fealty. Word for word, the twins had said it to their father when they’d reached maturity. Now Kith-Kanan said it to his twin, his elder by just three minutes.

Chapter 28

BURDENED BY COMMAND

Sithel’s body was borne back to his capital with haste. Sithas felt dignity was less important than speed; he wanted to present the nation with the terrible news as quickly as possible. The Ergothians might move at any time, and the elven nation was not ready to meet them.

The dire news flashed ahead of the caravan. By the time Sithel’s body was ferried across the Thon-Thalas, the city was already in mourning. The river was so thick with boats, it could be walked across. From the humblest fisher to the mightiest priest, all elves turned out to view the speaker for the last time. By the thousands they lined the street to the Tower of the Stars, bare-headed out of respect. Waiting for the cortege at the tower was Lady Nirakina. She was so stricken that she had to be carried in a sedan chair from the palace to the tower.

There were no hails or cheers as Speaker Sithas walked through the streets, leading the funeral cortege. His father lay in state in the Temple of E’li as thousands of his subjects came to pay him a last farewell. Then, with a minimum of ceremony, Sithel was put to rest beside his own father in the magnificent mausoleum known as the Crystal Tomb.

The very next day, Sithas composed an ultimatum to the emperor of Ergoth. “We consider the death of our father Sithel to be nothing less than deliberate murder,” Sithas wrote. “The Elven Nation demands retribution for its speaker’s death. If Your Imperial Highness wishes to avoid war, we will accept an indemnity of one million gold pieces, the expulsion of all Ergothian subjects from our western territories, and the surrender of all the men present at the murder of our father, including Ulvissen.”

Kith-Kanan had had to delay his departure from Sithelbec. He arrived in Silvanost two days after his father’s funeral, incensed that Sithas had acted so precipitously with the last rites and his ultimatum to the emperor of Ergoth.

“Why did you not wait?” he complained to his twin in the Tower of the Stars. “I should have been here to see father’s last rites!” Kith-Kanan had just come from a long visit with his mother; her grief and his own weighed heavily upon him.

“There is no time for empty ceremony,” Sithas said. “War may be near, and we must act. I have ordered prayers and offerings to our father be made in every temple every night for thirty days, but for now I must rally the people.”

“Will the humans attack?” asked Hermathya anxiously from her place at Sithas’s side.

“I don’t know,” the speaker replied grimly. “They outnumber us ten to one.”

Kith-Kanan looked at the two of them. It was so unnatural to see them where Sithel and Nirakina had been so often seated. Hermathya looked beautiful, perfectly groomed and dressed in a gown of gold, silver, and white. Yet she was cold. Whereas Nirakina could inspire respect and love with a smile and a nod, all Hermathya seemed capable of doing was looking statuesque. Of course she did not meet Kith-Kanan’s eyes.

On the emerald throne, Sithas looked strained and tired. He was trying to make fast and hard decisions, as he felt befitted a monarch in time of trouble. The burden showed on his face and in his posture. He looked far older than his twin at this moment.

The tower was empty except for the three of them. All morning Sithas had been meeting with priests, nobles, and masters of the guilds, telling them what he expected from them in case of war. There had been some patriotic words, mostly from the priests, but in all the tone of the audience had been very subdued. Now only Kith-Kanan remained. Sithas had special orders for him.

“I want you to form the Wildrunners into a single army,” he commanded.

“With what purpose?” his twin asked.

“Resist the Ergothian army, should it cross the border into the forest.”

Kith-Kanan rubbed his forehead. “You know, Sith, that the whole militia numbers only twenty thousand, most of whom are farmers armed with pikes.”

“I know, but there’s nothing else to stop the humans between their border and the banks of the Thon-Thalas. We need time, Kith, time for Kencathedrus to raise an army with which to defend Silvanost.”

“Then why in Astarin’s name are you so eager to start a war with Ergoth? They have two hundred thousand men under arms! You said it yourself!”

Sithas’s hands clenched the arms of his throne, and he leaned forward. “What else can I do? Forgive the humans for murdering our father? You know it was murder. They laid a trap for him and killed him! Is it such a coincidence that Ulvissen was in the area and that one of his supposed foresters perpetrated the crime?”

“It is suspicious,” Kith-Kanan conceded, with less heat than before. He pulled his helmet on, threading the chin strap into its buckle. “I will do what I can, Sith,” he said finally, “but there may be those who aren’t as willing to fight and die for Silvanesti.”

“Anyone who refuses the speaker’s call is a traitor,” Hermathya interjected.

“It is easy to make such distinctions here in the city, but on the plains and in the woods, neighbors mean more than far-off monarchs,” Kith-Kanan said pointedly.

“Are you saying the Kagonesti will not fight for us?” asked Sithas angrily.

“Some will. Some may not.”

Sithas leaned back and sighed deeply. “I see. Do what you can, Kith. Go back to Sithelbec as quickly as you can.” He hesitated. “I know you will do your best.”

A brief glance passed between the twins. “I’ll take Arcuballis,” said Kith-Kanan and went quickly.

When the prince had departed, Hermathya fumed. “Why do you allow him to be so familiar? You’re the speaker. He should bow and call you Highness.”

Sithas turned to his wife. His face was impassive. “I have no doubts about Kith’s loyalty,” he said heavily. “Unlike yours, Lady, in spite of your correct language and empty flattery.”

“What do you mean?” she said stiffly.

“I know you hired Kagonesti thugs to murder Kith-Kanan because he would not dishonor me by becoming your lover. I know all, Lady.”

Hermathya’s normally pale face grew waxen. “It’s not true,” she said, her voice wavering. “It’s a foul lie-Kith-Kanan told you, didn’t he?”

“No, Lady. Kith doesn’t know you hired the elves who murdered his friend. When you employed a certain gray-robed sorcerer to contact a band of killers, you didn’t know that the same sorcerer also works for me. For gold, he will do anything-including tell me everything about your treachery.”

Hermathya’s entire body shivered violently. She rose unsteadily from her throne and backed across the platform, away from Sithas. The silver and gold hem of her heavy robe dragged across the marble floor.

“What will you do?” she gasped.

He stared at her for a long minute. “To you? Nothing. This is hardly the time for the speaker to put his wife in prison. Your plot failed, fortunately for your life, so I will let you keep your freedom for now. But I tell you this, Hermathya —” he rose and stood tall and straight before her “— if you so much as frown at my brother, or if you ever have contact with Vedvedsica again, I will shut you away someplace where you’ll never see the sun again.”

Sithas turned and strode with resolve from the tower. Hermathya remained standing for a moment, swaying to and fro. Finally, her legs gave way. She collapsed in the center of the platform and wept. The rich silver and gold of her robes gleamed in the light from the window slits.

*

The griffon’s wings beat in quick rhythm as Kith-Kanan and Arcuballis flew to the west. An array of armor and arms weighed Arcuballis down, but the powerful beast never faltered in flight. As they passed over the vast southern forest, Kith-Kanan couldn’t help but look down at the green canopy and wonder. If Anaya hadn’t changed, would he still be down there somewhere, living the free life of a wild elf? Would Mackeli still be alive? These thoughts gnawed at him. His happiest days had been the time spent with Anaya and Mackeli, roaming the wildwood, doing whatever the moment called for. No duty. No onerous protocol. Life had been an eternal, joyous spring.

And just as quickly, Kith-Kanan found himself dismissing these thoughts from his mind. It can’t always be spring, and one can’t always be young and carefree. He wasn’t an ordinary elf after all, but a prince of the blood. His life had held many pleasures and very little had ever been asked of him. Now it was time for him to earn what he had enjoyed. Kith-Kanan fixed his gaze on the distant blue horizon and steeled himself for war.

The Kinslayer Wars

Prologue

WINTER,
YEAR OF THE RAM

(2215 PC)

“The Emperor arrives – he enters the fortress at the South Gate!”

The cry rang from the walls of Caergoth, blared by a thousand trumpets and heard by a million ears. Excitement spread through the massive tent city around the great castle, while the towering fortress itself fairly tingled with anticipation.

The carriage of Emperor Quivalin Soth V, sometimes called Ullves, rumbled through the huge gates, pulled by a team of twelve white horses, trailed by an escort of five thousand men. From every parapet, every castellated tower top and high rampart in sprawling Caergoth, silk-gowned ladies, proud noblemen, and courtiers waved and cheered.

Sheer, gray-fronted walls of granite towered over the procession, dominating the surrounding farmlands as a mountain looms over a plain. Four massive gates, each formed from planks of vallenwood eighty feet long, barred the sides of the great structure against any conceivable foe – indeed, they proudly bore the scars of dragonbreath, inflicted during the Second Dragon War more than four centuries earlier.

The interior of Caergoth consisted of winding avenues, tall and narrow gates, stone buildings crowded together, and always the high walls. They curved about and climbed in terrace after terrace toward the heart of the massive castle, forming a granite maze for all who entered.

The carriage trundled through the outer gatehouse with imperial dignity and rolled along the streets, through open gates, and down the widest avenue toward the center of the fortress. Banners, in black and deep red and dark blue, hung from the ramparts. Everywhere the cheering of the crowds thundered around the emperor’s coach.

Outside the walls, a vast sea of tents covered the fields around the fortress, and from these poured the men-at-arms of the emperor’s army – some two hundred thousand in all. Though they did not mingle with the nobles and captains of the fortress, their joy was no less boisterous. They surged toward the castle in the wake of the emperor’s procession, their shouts and hurrahs penetrating the heavy stone walls.

Finally the procession entered a broad plaza, cool and misty from the spray of a hundred fountains. Beyond, soaring to the very clouds themselves, arose the true wonder of Caergoth: the palace of the king. Tall towers jutted up from high walls, and lofty, peaked roofs seemed distant and unreachable. Crystal windows reflected sunlight in dazzling rainbows, filtering and flashing their colors through the shimmering haze of the fountains.

The coach rumbled down the wide, paved roadway to the gates of the palace.

These portals, solid silver shined to mirrorlike brilliance, stood open wide. In their place stood the royal personage himself, King Trangath II, Lord of Caergoth and most loyal servant to the Emperor of Ergoth.

Here the royal coach halted. A dozen men-at-arms snapped their halberds to their chests as the king’s own daughter opened the door of the gleaming steel carriage. The crowd surged across the plaza, even through the pools of the fountains, in an effort to see the great person who rode within. Around the plaza, from the surrounding walls and towers, teeming thousands shouted their adulation.

The emperor’s green eyes flashed as he stepped from the high vehicle with a grace that belied his fifty years. His beard and hair now showed streaks of gray, but his iron will had hardened over his decades of rule until he was known, truthfully, as a ruthless and determined leader who had led his people into a prosperity they had never before known.

Now this regal leader, his robe of crimson fur flowing over a black silk tunic trimmed in platinum, ignored the King of Caergoth, stepping quickly to the three men who stood silently behind that suddenly embarrassed monarch.

Each of these was bearded and wore a cap and breastplate of gleaming steel plate. Tall boots rose above their knees, and each held a pair of gauntlets under his arm as he waited to greet the most powerful man in all of Ansalon.

The shrieks of the crowd reached a crescendo as the emperor seized each of these men, one after the other, in an embrace of deepest affection. He turned once more and waved to the masses.

Then Quivalin V led the three men toward the crystal doors of the king’s palace. The portals parted smoothly, and when they closed, the hysteria beyond fell to a muted rumble.

“Find us a place where we can speak privately,” the emperor commanded, without turning to look at King Trangath.

Immediately that royal personage scuttled ahead, bowing obsequiously and beckoning the emperor’s party through a towering door of dark mahogany.

“I hope fervently that my humble library will suit my most esteemed lord’s needs,” the old king huffed, bowing so deeply he tottered for a moment, almost losing his balance.

Emperor Quivalin said nothing – until he and the three men had entered the library and the doors had soundlessly closed behind them. A deep black marble floor stretched into the far comers of the huge room. Above them, the ceiling lofted into the distance, a dark surface of rich, brown wood. The only light came from high, narrow windows of crystal; it fell around them as beams of heat and warmth before its reflections vanished in the light-absorbent darkness of the floor.

Though several soft chairs stood along the walls, none of the men moved to sit. Instead, the emperor fixed each of the others with a stare of piercing strength and impelling command.

“You three men are my greatest generals,” Quivalin V said, his voice surprisingly soft beneath the intensity of his gaze. “And now you are the hope and the future of all humankind!”

The three stood a little taller at his words, their shoulders growing a trifle more broad. The emperor continued. “We have borne the elven savagery long enough. Their stubborn refusal to allow humans their rightful place in the plains has become too much to bear. The racial arrogance of their Speaker has turned diplomacy into insults. Our reasonable demands are mocked. Silvanesti intransigence must be wiped out.”

Abruptly Quivalin’s gaze flashed to one of the trio – the oldest, if his white beard and long hair of the same color were any indication. Lines of strain and character marked the man’s face, and his short stature nevertheless bespoke a quiet, contained power.

“Now, High General Barnet, tell me your plans.”

The older warrior cleared his throat. A veteran of four decades of service to this emperor – and to Quivalin IV before him – Barnet nevertheless couldn’t entirely calm himself in the face of that august presence.

“Excellency, we will advance into the plains in three great wings – a powerful thrust from the center, and two great hooks to the north and south. I myself will command the central wing – a thousand heavy lancers and fifty thousand sturdy footmen with metal armor, shields, and pikes. Sailors and woodsmen from Daltigoth and the south, mainly, including ten thousand with crossbows.

“We shall drive directly toward Sithelbec, which we know is the heart of the elven defense – a place the elven general must defend. Our aim is to force the enemy into combat before us, while the northern and southern wings complete the encirclement. They will serve as the mobile hammers, gathering the enemy against the anvil of my own solid force.”

High General Barnett looked to one of his co-commanders. “General Xalthan commands the southern wing.”

Xalthan, a red-bearded warrior with bristling eyebrows and missing front teeth, seemed to glower at the emperor with a savage aspect, but this was simply an effect of his warlike appearance. His voice, as he spoke, was deferential. “I have three brigades of heavy lancers, Excellency, and as many footmen as Barnett – armored in leather, to move more quickly.”

Xalthan seemed to hesitate a moment, as if embarrassed, then he plunged boldly ahead. “The gnomish artillery, I must admit, has not lived up to expectations. But their engineers are busy even as we speak. I feel certain that the lava cannons will be activated early in the campaign.”

The emperor’s eyes narrowed slightly at the news. No one saw the facial gesture except for Xalthan, but the other two noticed that veteran commander’s ruddy complexion grow visibly pale.

“And you, Giarna?” asked the emperor, turning to the third man. “How goes the grandest campaign of the Boy General?”

Giarna, whose youthfulness was apparent in his smooth skin and soft, curling beard, didn’t react to his nickname. Instead, he stood easily, with a casualness that might have been interpreted as insolence, except there was crisp respect reflected in his expression as he pondered his answer. Even so, his eyes unsettled the watchers, even the emperor. They were dark and full of a deep and abiding menace that made him seem older than his years.

The other two generals scowled privately at the young man. After all, it was common knowledge that Giarna’s favored status with the emperor was due more to the Duchess Suzine des Quivalin – niece of the emperor, and reputed mistress to the general himself – than to any inherent military skill.

Still, Giarna’s battle prowess, demonstrated against rebellious keeps across the Vingaard Plains, was grudgingly admitted even by his critics. It was his mastery of strategy, not his individual courage or his grasp of tactics, that had yet to be proven.

Under ordinary circumstances, General Giarna’s army command skills would not have been tested on the battlefield for some years yet – until he was older and more seasoned. However, a recent rash of tragic accidents – a panicked horse bucking, a jealous husband returning home, and a misunderstood command to retreat – had cost the lives of the three generals who had stood in line for this post. Thus Giarna, youthful though he was, had been given his opportunity.

Now he stood proudly before his emperor and replied.

“My force is the smallest, Excellency, but also the fastest. I have twenty thousand riders – horse archers and lancers – and also ten thousand footmen each of sword and longbowmen. It is my intention to march swiftly and come between the Wildrunners and their base in Sithelbec. Then I will wait for Kith-Kanan to come to me, and I will shred his army with my arrows and my horsemen.”

Giarna made his report coolly, without so much as a nod to his peers, as if the other two commanders were excessive baggage on this, the Boy General’s first great expedition. The older generals fumed; the implication was not lost on them.

Nor on the emperor. Quivalin V smiled at the plans of his generals. Beyond the walls of the cavernous library, within the vast palace, the roar of the admiring crowd could still be heard.

Abruptly the emperor clapped his hands, the sound echoing sharply through the large chamber. A side door to the room opened, and a woman advanced across the gleaming marble. Even the two older generals, both of whom distrusted and resented her, would have admitted that her beauty was stunning.

Her hair, of coppery red, spiraled around a diamond-encrusted tiara of rich platinum. A gown of green silk conformed to the full outline of her breasts and hips, accented by a belt of rubies and emeralds that enclosed her narrow waist.

But it was her face that was most striking, with her high cheekbones and proud, narrow chin and, most significant, her eyes. They glowed with the same vibrance as the emeralds on her belt, the almost unnatural green of the Quivalin line.

Suzine Des Quivalin curtsied deeply to her uncle, the emperor. Her eyes remained downcast as she awaited his questions.

“What can you tell us about the state of the enemy’s forces?” asked the ruler.

“Has your mirror been of use in this regard?”

“Indeed, Excellency,” she replied. “Though the range to the elven army is great, conditions have been good. I have been able to see much.

“The elven general, Kith-Kanan, has deployed his forces in thin screens throughout the plain, well forward of the fortress of Sithelbec. He has few horsemen – perhaps five hundred, certainly less than a thousand. Any one of your army’s wings will outnumber his entire force, perhaps by a factor of two or three.”

“Splendid,” noted Quivalin. Again he clapped, this time twice.

The figure that emerged from a different door was perhaps as opposite from the woman as was conceivable. Suzine turned to leave as this stocky individual clumped into the room. She paused only long enough to meet Giarna’s gaze, as if she was searching for something in his eyes. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it. She saw nothing but the dark, insatiable hunger for war. In another moment, she disappeared through the same door she had entered.

In the meantime, the other figure advanced toward the four men. The newcomer was stooped, almost apelike in posture, and barely four feet tall. His face was grotesque, an effect accentuated by his leering grin. And where Suzine’s eyes crowned her beauty with pride and dignity, the mad, staring eyes of the dwarf showed white all around the tiny pupils and seemed to dart frantically from person to person.

If he felt any repugnance at the dwarf’s appearance, the emperor didn’t show it. Instead, he simply asked a question.

“What is the status of Thorbardin’s involvement?”

“Most Exalted One, my own dwarves of the Theiwar Clan offer you their unequivocal support. We share your hatred of the arrogant elves and wish nothing more than their defeat and destruction.”

“Nothing more, unless it be a sum of profit in the bargain,” remarked the emperor, his voice neutral.

The dwarf bowed again, too thick-skinned to be offended. “Your Eminence may take reassurance from the fact that loyalty purchased is always owed to the wealthiest patron – and here you have no competition in all of Krynn.”

“Indeed,” Quivalin added dryly. “But what of the other dwarves – the Hylar, the Daergar?”

“Alas,” sighed the Theiwar dwarf. “They have not been so open-minded as my own clan. The Hylar, in particular, seem bound by ancient treaties and affections. Our influence is great, but thus far insufficient to break these ties.”

The dwarf lowered his voice conspiratorially. “However, your lordliness, we have an agent in place – a Theiwar – and should be able to ensure that little excess of comfort is delivered to your enemies.”

“Splendid,” agreed the emperor. If he was curious as to the precise identity of the Theiwar agent, he gave no sign. “A vigorous season of warfare should bring them to heel. I hope to drive them from the plains before winter. The elven cowards will be ready to sign a treaty by spring!”

The emperor’s eyes suddenly glowed with dull fire, the calculated sense of power and brutality that had allowed him to send thousands of men to their deaths in a dozen of his empire’s wars. They flamed brighter at the thought of the arrogance of the long-lived elves and their accursed stubbornness. His voice became a growl.

“But if they continue to resist, we will not be content to wage war on the plains. Then you will march on the elven capital itself. If it is necessary to prove our might, we will reduce Silvanost itself to ashes.”

The generals bowed to their ruler, determined to do his bidding. Two of them felt fear – fear of his power and his whim. Beads of sweat collected upon their foreheads, dripping unnoticed down cheeks and beards.

General Giarna’s brow, however, remained quite dry.

Part I

A TASTE OF KILLING

Chapter 1

LATE WINTER,
YEAR OF THE RAVEN

(2214 PC)

The forest vanished into the distance on all sides, comfortingly huge, eternal, and unchanging. That expanse was the true heart, the most enduring symbol, of the elven nation of Silvanesti. The towering pines, with lush green needles so dark they were almost black, dominated, but glades of oak and maple, aspen, and birch flourished in many isolated pockets, giving the forest a diverse and ever-changing character.

Only from a truly exalted vantage – such as from the Tower of the Stars, the central feature of Silvanost – could the view be fully appreciated. This was where Sithas, Speaker of the Stars and ruler of Silvanesti, came to meditate and contemplate.

The sky loomed vast and distant overhead, a dome of black filled with glittering pinpoints of light. Krynn’s moons had not yet risen, and this made the pristine beauty of the stars more brilliant, more commanding.

For a long time, Sithas stood at the lip of the tower’s parapet. He found comfort in the stars and in the deep and eternal woods beyond this island, beyond this city. Sithas sensed that the forest was the true symbol of his people’s supremacy. Like the great trunks of forest giants, the ancient, centuries-living elves stood above the scurrying, scampering lesser creatures of the world.

Finally the Speaker of the Stars lowered his eyes to look upon that city, and immediately the sense of peace and splendor he had known dissipated.

Instead, his mind focused on Silvanost, the ancient elven capital, the city that held his palace and his throne.

Faint traces of a drunken chant rose through the night air to disturb his ears.

The song thrummed in the guttural basso of dwarves, as if to mock his concern and consternation.

Dwarves! They are everywhere in Silvanost! Everywhere, in the city of elves, he thought grimly.

Yet the dwarves were a necessary evil, Sithas admitted with a sigh. The war with the humans called for extremely careful negotiations with powerful Thorbardin, the dwarven stronghold south of the disputed lands. The power of that vast and warlike nation, thrown behind either human Ergoth or elven Silvanesti, could well prove decisive.

Once, a year earlier, the Speaker of the Stars had assumed the dwarves were firmly in the elven camp. His negotiations with the esteemed Hylar dwarf Dunbarth Ironthumb had presented a unified front against human encroachment. Sithas had assumed that dwarven troops would soon stand beside the elves in the disputed plainslands.

Yet, to date, King Hal-Waith of Thorbardin had not yet sent a single regiment of dwarven fighters, nor had he released to Kith-Kanan’s growing army any of the great stocks of dwarven weapons. The patient dwarves were not about to be hurried into any rash wars.

So a dwarven diplomatic mission was a necessity in Silvanost. And now that war had begun, such missions required sizable escorts – in the case of the recently arrived dwarven general Than-Kar, some one thousand loyal axemen.

Surprising himself, Sithas thought with fondness of the previous dwarven ambassador. Dunbarth Ironthumb had fully possessed all the usual uncouthness of a dwarf, but he also had a sense of humor and was self-effacing, traits that had relaxed and amused Sithas.

Than-Kar had none of these traits. A swarthy complected Theiwar, the general was rude to the point of belligerence. Impatient and uncooperative, the ambassador actually seemed to act as an impediment to communication.

Take, for example, the messenger who had arrived from Thorbardin more than a week ago. This dwarf, after his months’-long march, must certainly have brought important news from the dwarven king. Yet, Than-Kar had said nothing, had not even requested an audience with the Speaker of the Stars.

This was the reason for the conference Sithas had scheduled for the morrow, peremptorily summoning Than-Kar to the meeting in order to find out what the Theiwar knew.

His mood as thick as the night, Sithas let his gaze follow the dark outlines of the river Thon-Thalas, the wide waterway surrounding Silvanost and its island.

The water was smooth, and he could see starlight reflected in its crystal surface. Then the breeze rose again, clouding the surface with ripples and washing the chant of the dwarven axemen away.

Seeing the river, the Speaker’s mind filled with a new and most unwelcome memory, a scene as clear in its every detail as it was painful in its recollection.

Two weeks ago or more it was now, yet it might as well have been that very morning. That was when the newly recruited regiments had departed westward, to join Kith-Kanan’s forces.

The long columns of warriors had lined the riverbank, waiting their turns to board the ferry and cross. From the far bank of the Thon-Thalas, they were about to begin their long march to the disputed lands, five hundred miles to the west. Their five thousand spears, swords, and longbows would prove an important addition to the Wildrunners.

Yet, for the first time in the history of Silvanesti, the elves had needed to be bribed into taking up arms for their Speaker, their nation. A hundred steel bounty, paid upon recruitment, had been offered as incentive. Even this had not brought volunteers flocking to the colors, though after several weeks of recruitment regiments of sufficient size had finally been raised.

And then there had been the scene at the riverbank.

The cleric Miritelisina had just recently emerged from the cell where Sithas’s father, Sithel, had thrown her for treason a year earlier. The matriarch of the faith of Quenesti Pah, benign goddess of healing and health, Miritelisina had voiced loud objections to the war with the humans. She had had the audacity to lead a group of elven females in a shrill, hysterical protest against the conflict with Ergoth. It had been a sickening display, worthy more of humans than of elves. Yet the cleric had enjoyed a surprisingly large amount of support from the onlooking citizens of Silvanesti.

Sithas had promptly ordered Miritelisina back to prison, and his guard had disrupted the gathering with crisp efficiency. Several females had been wounded, one fatally. At the same time, one of the heavily laden river craft had overturned, drowning several newly recruited elves. All in all, these were bad omens.

At least, the Speaker realized, the outbreak of war had driven the last humans from the city. The pathetic refugees of the troubles on the plains – many with elven spouses – had marched back to their homelands. Those who could fight had joined the Wildrunners, the army of Silvanost, centered around the members of the House Protectorate. The others had taken shelter in the great fortress of Sithelbec. Ironic, thought Sithas, that humans married to elves should be sheltered in an elven fortress, safe against the onslaught of human armies!

Still, in every other way, the city that Sithas loved seemed to be slipping further and further from his control.

His gaze lingered to the west, rising to the horizon, and he wished he could see beyond. Kith-Kanan was there somewhere under this same star-studded sky. His twin brother might even be looking eastward at this moment; at least, Sithas wanted to believe that he felt some contact.

For a moment, Sithas found himself wishing that his father still lived. How he missed Sithel’s wisdom, his steady counsel and firm guidance! Had his father ever known these doubts, these insecurities? The idea seemed impossible to the son. Sithel had been a pillar of strength and conviction. He would not have wavered in his pursuit of this war in the protection of the elven nation against outside corruption.

The purity of the elven race was a gift of the gods, with its longevity and its serene majesty. Now that purity was threatened – by human blood, to be sure, but also by ideas of intermingling, trade, artisanship, and social tolerance.

The nation faced a very crucial time indeed. In the west, he knew, elves and humans had begun to intermarry with disturbing frequency, giving birth to a whole bastard race of half-elves.

By all the gods, it was an abomination, an affront to the heavens themselves!

Sithas felt his face flush, and his hands clenched. If he had worn a sword, he would have seized it then, so powerfully did the urge to fight come over him.

The elves must prevail – they would prevail!

Again he felt his distance from the conflict, and it loomed as a yawning chasm of frustration before him. As yet they had received no word of battle, although he knew that nearly a month earlier, the great invasion had begun. His brother had reported three great human columns, all moving purposefully into the plainslands. Sithas wanted to go and fight himself, to lend his strength to winning the war, and it was all he could do to hold himself back. Inevitably his sense of reason prevailed.

At times, the war seemed so far away, so unreachable. Yet, other times, he found it beside him, here in Silvanost, in his palace, in his thoughts … in his very bedroom.

His bedroom. Sithas gave a rueful smile and shook his head in wonder. He thought of Hermathya, how months earlier his feelings for her had approached loathing.

Yet with the coming of war, a change had come over his wife as well. Now she supported him as never before, standing beside him every day against the complaints and pettiness of his people … and lying beside him every night as well.

He heard, or perhaps he felt, the soft rustle of silk, and then she was beside him. He breathed a deep sigh – a sound of contentment and satisfaction. The two of them stood alone, six hundred feet above the city, atop the Tower of the Stars, beneath the brilliant light shower of its namesake.

Her mouth, with its round lips so unusually full for an elf, was creased by the trace of a smile – a sly, secret smile that he found strangely beguiling. She stood beside him, touching a hand to his chest and leaning her head on his shoulder.

He smelled her hair, rich with the scent of lilacs, yet in color as bright as copper. Her smooth skin glowed with a milky luminescence, and he felt her warm lips upon his neck. A warm rush of desire swept through him, fading only slightly as she relaxed and stood beside him in silence.

Sithas thought of his volatile wife – how pleasant it was to have her come to him thus, and how rare such instances had been in the past. Hermathya was a proud and beautiful elf woman, used to getting her own way. Sometimes he wondered if she regretted their marriage, arranged by their parents. Once, he knew, she had been the lover of his brother – indeed, Kith-Kanan had rebelled against his father’s authority and fled Silvanost when her engagement to Sithas had been announced. Did she ever regret her choice? How well had she calculated her future as wife of the Speaker of the Stars? He did not know – perhaps, in fact, he was afraid to ask her.

“Have you seen my cousin yet?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Lord Quimant? Yes, he came to the Hall of Balif earlier today. I must say, he seems to have an excellent grip on the problems of weapon production. He knows mining, smelting, and smithing. His aid is much needed … and would be much appreciated. We are not a nation of weaponsmiths like the dwarves.”

“Clan Oakleaf has long made the finest of elven blades,” Hermathya replied proudly. “That is known throughout Silvanesti.”

“It is not the quality that worries me, my dear. It is in the quantity of weapons that we lag sadly behind the humans, and the dwarves. We cleaned out the royal armories in order to outfit the last regiments we sent to the west.”

“Quimant will solve your problems, I’m certain. Will he be coming to Silvanost?”

The estate of Clan Oakleaf lay to the north of the elven capital, near the mines where they excavated the iron for their small foundries. The clan, the central power behind House Metalline, was the primary producer of weapons-quality steel in the kingdom of Silvanesti. Lately its influence had grown, due to the necessity of increased weapons production brought on by the war. The mines were worked by slaves, mostly human and Kagonesti elves, but this was a fact Sithas had to accept because of his nation’s emergency. Lord Quimant, the son of Hermathya’s eldest uncle, was being groomed as the spokesman and leader of Clan Oakleaf, and his services for the estate were important.

“I believe he will. I’ve offered him chambers in the palace, as well as incentives for the Oakleaf clan – mineral rights, steady supplies of coal … and labor.”

“It would be wonderful to have some of my family around again.”

Hermathya’s voice rose, joyful as a young girl’s. “This can be such a lonely place, with all of your attention directed to the war.”

He lowered his hand, sliding it along the smooth silk of her gown, down her back, his strong fingers caressing her. She sighed and held him tighter. “Well, maybe not all of your attention,” she added, with a soft laugh.

Sithas wanted to tell her what a comfort she had been to him, how much she had eased the burdens of his role as leader of the elven nation. He wondered at the change that had come over her, but he said nothing. That was his nature, and perhaps his weakness.

It was Hermathya who next spoke.

“There is another thing I must tell you …”

“Good news or bad?” he asked, idly curious.

“You will need to judge that for yourself, though I suspect you will be pleased.”

He turned to look at her, holding both of his hands on her shoulders. That secret smile still played about her lips.

“Well?” he demanded, feigning impatience. “Don’t tease me all night! Tell me.”

“You and I, great Speaker of the Stars, are going to have a baby. An heir.”

Sithas gaped at her, unaware that his jaw had dropped in a most unelven lack of dignity. His mind reeled, and a profound explosion of joy rose within his heart. He wanted to shout his delight from the tower top, to let the word ring through the city like a prideful cry.

For a moment, he truly forgot about everything – the war, the dwarves, the logistics and weapons that had occupied him. He pulled his wife to him and kissed her. He held her for a long time under the starlight, above the city that had so troubled him earlier.

But for now, all was right with the world.

*

The next day, Than-Kar came to see Sithas, though the Theiwar dwarf arrived nearly fifteen minutes after the time indicated in the Speaker’s summons. Sithas awaited him, impatiently seated upon the great emerald throne of his ancestors, located in the center of the great Hall of Audience. This vast chamber occupied the base of the Tower of the Stars, with its sheer walls soaring upward into the dizzying heights. Above, six hundred feet over their heads, the top of the tower stood open to the sky.

Than-Kar clumped into the hall at the head of a column of twelve bodyguards, almost as if he expected ambush. Twoscore elves of the House Protectorate – the royal guard of Silvanesti – snapped to attention around the periphery of the hall.

The Theiwar sniffed his nose loudly, the rude gesture echoing through the hall, as he approached the Speaker. Sithas studied the dwarf, carefully masking his distaste.

Like all Theiwar dwarves, Than-Kar’s eyes seemed to stare wildly, with the whites showing all around the pinpoint pupils. His lips curled in a perpetual sneer, and despite his ambassadorial station, his beard and hair remained unkempt, his leather clothes filthy. How unlike Dunbarth Ironthumb!

The Theiwar bowed perfunctorily and then looked up at Sithas, his beady eyes glittering with antagonism.

“We’ll make this brief,” said the elf coldly. “I desire to know what word has come from your king. He has had time to reply, and the questions we have sent have not been formally answered.”

“As a matter of fact, I was preparing my written reply when your courier interrupted me with this summons yesterday. I had to delay my progress in order to hasten to this meeting.”

Yes, Than-Kar must have made haste, for he obviously hadn’t taken time to run a comb through his hair or change his grease-spattered tunic, thought Sithas. The Speaker held his tongue, albeit with difficulty.

“However, insofar as I am here and taking up the speaker’s valuable time, I can summarize the message that I have received from Thorbardin.”

“Please, do,” Sithas requested dryly.

“The Royal Council of Thorbardin finds that, to date, there is insufficient cause to support elven warmaking in the plains,” announced the dwarf bluntly.

“What?” Sithas stiffened, no longer able to retain his impassive demeanor.

“That is a contradiction of everything our meetings with Dunbarth established! Surely you – your people – recognize that the human threat extends beyond mere grazing rights on the plains!”

“There is no evidence of a threat to our interests.”

“No threat?” The elf cut him off rudely. “You know humans, they will stretch and grab whatever they can. They will seize our plains, your mountains, the forest – everything!”

Than-Kar regarded him coolly, those wide, staring eyes seeming to gleam with delight. Abruptly Sithas realized that he was wasting his time with this arrogant Theiwar. Angrily he stood, half fearing that he would strike out at the dwarf and very much desiring to do just that. Still, enough of his dignity and self-control remained to stay his hand. After all, a war with the dwarves was the last thing they needed right now.

“This conference is concluded,” he said stiffly.

Than-Kar nodded – smugly, Sithas thought – and turned to lead his escort from the hall.

Sithas stared after the dwarven ambassador, his anger still seething. He would not – he could not – allow this to be the final impasse!

But what else could he do? No ideas arrived to lighten the oppressive burden of his mood.

Chapter 2

SPRING

(2214 PC)

The horse pranced nervously along the ridgetop, staying within the protective foliage of the tree line. Thick, blue-green pines enclosed the mount and its elven rider on three sides. Finally the great stallion Kijo stood still, allowing Kith-Kanan to peer through the moist, aromatic branches to the vast expanse of open country beyond.

Nearby, two of the Wildrunners – Kith’s personal bodyguards – sat alertly in their saddles, swords drawn and eyes alert. Those elves, too, were nervous at the sight of their leader possibly exposing himself to the threat in the valley below.

And what a threat it was! The long column of the human army snaked into the distance as far as the keen-eyed elves could see from their vantage on the ridgetop. The vanguard of the army, a company of heavily armored lancers riding huge, lumbering war-horses, had already passed them by.

Now ranks of spearmen, thousands upon thousands, marched past, perhaps a mile away down the gradually sloping ridge. This was the central wing of the massive Army of Ergoth, which followed the most direct route toward Sithelbec and presented the most immediate threat to the Wildrunners. Kith-Kanan turned with a grim smile, and Kijo pranced into the deeper shelter of the forest.

The commander of the Wildrunners knew his force was ready for this, the opening battle of his nation’s first war in over four centuries. Not since the Second Dragon War had the elves of the House Protectorate taken to the field to defend their nation against an external threat.

The ring on his finger – the Ring of Balifor – had been given to his father as a reminder of the alliance between kender and elves during the Second Dragon War. Now he wore it and prepared to do battle in a new cause. For a moment, he wondered what this war would be named when Astinus took up his pen to scribe the tale in his great annals.

Though Kith-Kanan was young for an elf – he had been born a mere ninety-three years ago – he felt the weight of long tradition riding in the saddle with him. He knew no compelling hatred toward these humans, yet he recognized the threat they presented. If they weren’t stopped here, half of Silvanesti would be gobbled up by the rapacious human settlers, and the elves would be driven into a small corner of their once vast holdings.

The humans had to be defeated. It was Kith-Kanan’s job, as commander of the Wildrunners, to see that the elven nation was victorious.

Another figure moved through the trees, bringing the bodyguards’ swords swooshing forth, until they recognized the rider.

“Sergeant-Major Parnigar.” Kith-Kanan nodded to the veteran Wildrunner, his chief aide and most reliable scout. The sergeant was dressed in leather armor of green and brown, and he rode a stocky, nimble pony.

“The companies are in place, sir – the riders behind the ridge, with a thousand elves of Silvanost bearing pike behind them.” Parnigar, a veteran warrior who had fought in the Second Dragon War, had helped recruit the first wild elves into Kith-Kanan’s force. Now he reported on their readiness to die for that cause. “The Kagonesti archers are well hidden and well supplied. We can only hope the humans react as we desire.”

Parnigar looked skeptical as he spoke, but Kith suspected this was just the elf’s cautious nature. The sergeant’s face was as gray and leathery as an old map. His strapping arms rested on the pommel of his saddle with deceptive ease. His green eyes missed nothing. Even as he talked to his general, the sergeant-major was scanning the horizon.

Parnigar slouched casually in his saddle, his posture more like a human’s than an elf’s. Indeed, the veteran had taken a human wife some years before, and in many ways he seemed to enjoy the company of the short-lived race. He spoke quickly and moved with a certain restless agitation – both characteristics that tended to mark humans far more typically than elves.

Yet Parnigar knew his roots. He was an heir of the House Protectorate and had served in the Wildrunners since he had first learned to handle a sword. He was the most capable warrior that Kith-Kanan knew, and the elven general was glad to have him at his side.

“The human scouts have been slain by ambush,” Kith-Kanan told him. “Their army has lost its eyes. It is almost time. Come, ride with me.”

The commander of the Wildrunners nudged Kijo’s flanks with his knees, and the stallion exploded into a dash through the forest. So nimble was the horse’s step that he dashed around tree trunks with Kith-Kanan virtually a blur.

Parnigar raced behind, with the two hapless guards spurring their steeds in a losing struggle to keep pace.

For several minutes, the pair dashed through the forest, the riders’ faces lashed by pine needles, but the horses’ hooves landing true. Abruptly the trees stopped, exposing the wide, gently rolling ridgetop. Below, to the right, marched the endless army of humankind.

Kith-Kanan nudged Kijo again, and the stallion burst into view of the humans below. The elven general’s blond hair trailed in the sun behind him, for his helmet remained lashed to the back of his saddle. As he rode, he raised a steel-mailed fist.

He made a grand figure, racing along the crest of the hill above the teeming mass of his enemy. Like his twin brother Sithas, his face was handsome and proud, with prominent cheekbones and a sharp, strong chin. Though he was slender – like every one of his race – his tall physique lifted him above the deep pommels of the saddle.

Instantly the trumpeters of Silvanost sprang to their feet. They had lain in the grass along this portion of the crest. Raising their golden horns in unison, they brayed a challenge across the rolling prairie below. Behind the trumpeters, concealed from the humans by the crest of the ridge, the elven riders mounted their horses while the bowmen knelt in the tall grass, waiting for the command to action.

The great column of humans staggered like a confused centipede. Men turned to gape at the spectacle, observing pennants and banners that burst from the woods in a riotous display of color. All order vanished from the march as each soldier instinctively yielded to astonishment and the beginnings of fear.

Then the human army gasped, for the elven riders abruptly swarmed over the ridgetop in a long, precise line. Horses pranced, raising their forefeet in a high trot, while banners unfurled overhead and steel lance tips gleamed before them. They numbered but five hundred, yet every human who saw them swore later that they were attacked by thousands of elven riders.

Onward the elven horsemen came, their line remaining parade-ground sharp.

On the valley floor, some of the humans broke and ran, while others raised spears or swords, ready and even eager for battle.

From the front of the vast human column, the huge brigade of heavy lancers turned its mighty war-horses toward the flank. Yet they were two miles away, and their companies quickly lost coherence as they struggled around other regiments – the footmen – that were caught behind them.

The elven riders raced closer to the center of the column, the thunder of their hooves crashing and shaking the earth. Then, two hundred feet from their target, they stopped.

Each of the five hundred horses pivoted, and from the dust of the sudden maneuver, five hundred arrows arced forth, over the great blocks of humans and then down, like deadly hawks seeking out their terrified victims.

Another volley ripped into the human ranks, and suddenly the elven riders retreated, dashing across the same ridge they had charged down mere moments before.

In that same instant, the humans realized they were going to be robbed of the satisfaction of fighting, and a roar of outrage erupted from ten thousand throats. Swords raised, shields brandished, men broke from the column without command of their captains, chasing and cursing the elven riders. The enraged mob swept up the slope in chaotic disarray, united only in its fury.

Abruptly a trumpet cry rang from the low summit, and ranks of green-clad elves appeared in the grass before the charging humans, as if they had suddenly sprouted from the ground.

In the next instant, the sky darkened beneath a shower of keen elven arrows, their steel tips gleaming in the sunlight as they arced high above the humans, then tipped in their inevitable descent. Even before the first volley fell, another rippled outward, as steady and irresistible as hail.

The arrows tore into the human ranks with no regard for armor, rank, or quickness. Instead, the deadly rain showered the mob with complete randomness, puncturing steel helmets and breastplates and slicing through leather shoulder pads. Shrieks and cries from the wounded rose in hysterical chorus, while other humans fell silently, writhing in mute agony or lying still upon the now-reddening grass.

Again and again the arrows soared outward, and the mob wavered in its onrush. Bodies littered the field. Some of these crawled or squirmed pathetically toward safety, ignored by the mindless rush of the others.

As more of them died, fear rose like a palpable cloud over the heads of the humans. Then, by twos and fives and tens, they turned and raced back toward the rest of the column. Finally they retreated in hundreds, harried back down the newly mud-covered slope by pursuing missile fire. As they vanished, so did the elven archers, withdrawing at a trot over the crest of the ridge.

At last the human heavy lancers approached, and a cheer rose from the rest of the great army. A thousand bold knights, clad in armor from head to toe, urged their massive horses onward. The great beasts lumbered like monsters, buried beneath clanking plates of barding. A cloud of bright pennants fluttered over the thundering mass.

Kith-Kanan, still mounted upon his proud stallion, studied these new warriors from the ridgetop. Caution, not fear, tempered his hopes as the great weight of horses, men, and metal churned closer. The heavy knights, he knew, were the army’s most lethal attack force.

He had planned for this, but only the reality of things would show whether the Wildrunners stood equal to the task. For a moment, Kith-Kanan’s courage wavered, and he considered ordering a fast retreat from the field – a disastrous idea, he quickly told himself, for his hope now lay in steadfast courage, not flight. The knights drew nearer, and Kith-Kanan wheeled and galloped after the archers.

The great steeds runbled inexorably up the slope, toward the gentle crest where the elven riders and archers had disappeared. They couldn’t see the foe, but they hoped that the elves would be found just beyond the ridgetop. The knights kicked their mounts and shouted their challenges as they crested the rise, springing with renewed speed toward the enemy. In their haste, they broke their tight ranks, eager to crush the deadly archers and light elven lancers.

Instead, they met a phalanx of elven pikemen, the gleaming steel tips of the Wildrunners’ weapons arrayed as a bristling wall of death. The elves stood shoulder to shoulder in great blocks, facing outward from all sides. The riders and archers had taken shelter in the middle of these blocks, while three ranks of pikemen – one kneeling, one crouching, and one standing – kept their weapons fixed, promising certain death to any horse reckless enough to close.

The great war-horses, sensing the danger, turned, bucked, and spun, desperate to avoid the rows of pikes. Unfortunately for the riders, each horse, as it turned, met another performing a similar contortion. Many of the beasts crashed to the ground, and still more riders were thrown by their panicked steeds. They lay in their heavy armor, too weighted down even to climb to their feet.

Arrows whistled outward from the Wildrunners. Though the shortbows of the elven riders were ineffective against the armored knights, the longbows of the foot archers drove their barbed missiles through the heaviest plate at this close range. Howls of pain and dismay now drowned out the battle cries among the knights, and in moments the cavalry, in mass, turned and lumbered back across the ridgetop, leaving several dozen of their number moaning on the ground almost at the feet of the elven pikemen.

“Run, you bastards!” Parnigar’s shout was a gleeful bark beside Kith-Kanan.

The general, too, felt his lieutenant’s elation. They had held the knights! They had broken the charge!

Kith-Kanan and Parnigar watched the retreat of the knights from the center of the largest contingent. The sergeant-major looked at his commander, gesturing to the fallen knights. Some of these unfortunate men lay still, knocked unconscious by the fall from horseback, while others struggled to their knees or twitched in obvious pain. More humans lay at the top of the slope, their bodies punctured by elven arrows.

“Shall I give the order to finish them?” Parnigar asked, ready to send a rank of swordsmen forward. The grim warrior’s eyes flashed.

“No,” Kith-Kanan said. He looked grimly at his sergeant’s raised eyebrows.

“This is the first skirmish of a great war. Let it not be said we began it with butchery.”

“But – but they’re knights! These are the most powerful humans in that entire army! What if they are healed and restored to arms? Surely you don’t want them to ride against us again?” Parnigar kept his voice low but made his arguments precisely.

“You’re right – the power of the heavy knights is lethal. If we hadn’t been fully prepared for their assault, I’m not certain we could have held them. Still …”

Kith-Kanan’s mind balked at the situation before him, until a solution suddenly brightened his expression. “Send the swordsmen forward – but not to kill. Have them take the weapons of the fallen knights and any banners, pennants, and the like that they can find. Return with these, but let the humans live.”

Parnigar nodded, satisfied with his general’s decision. He raised a hand and the line of pikemen parted, allowing the sergeant-major’s charger to trot forward. Selecting a hundred veterans, he started the task of stripping the humans of their badges and pennants.

Kith turned, sensing movement behind him. He saw the pikemen parting there, too, this time to admit someone – a grimy elven rider straddling a foaming, dust-covered horse. Through the dust, Kith recognized a shock of hair the color of snow.

“White-lock! It’s good to see you.” Kith swung easily from his saddle as the Kagonesti elf did the same. The general clasped the rider’s hand warmly, searching the wild elf’s eyes for a hint of his news.

White-lock rubbed a hand across his dust-covered face, revealing the black and white stripes painted across his forehead. Typical of the wild elves, he was fully painted for war – and covered by the grit of his long ride. A scout and courier for the Wildrunners, he had ridden hundreds of miles to report on the movements of the human army.

Now White-lock nodded, deferentially but coolly, toward Kith-Kanan. “The humans fare poorly in the south,” he began. “They have not yet crossed the border into elven lands, so slowly do they march.”

White-lock’s tone dripped with scorn – a scorn equal to that Kith had heard him use when describing the “civilized” elves of crystalline Silvanost. Indeed, the wild elves of Kagonesti in many cases bore little love for their cousins in the cities – antipathy, to be sure, that mirrored the hatred and prejudice held by the Silvanesti elves for any race other than their own.

“Any word out of Thorbardin?”

“Nothing reliable.” The Kagonesti continued his report, his tone revealing that dwarves ranked near the bottom on his list of worthwhile peoples. ‘They promise to assist us when the humans have committed sufficient provocation, but I won’t believe them till I see them stand and fight.”

“Why does the southern wing of the Ergothian army march so slowly?” Kith-Kanan, through his Wildrunner scouts, had been tracking the three great wings of the vast Caergoth army, each of which was far greater in size than his entire force of Wildrunners.

“They have difficulties with the gnomes,” White-lock continued. “They drag some kind of monstrous machine with them, pulled by a hundred oxen, and it steams and belches smoke. A whole train of coal wagons follows, carrying fuel for this machine.”

“It must surely be some type of weapon – but what? Do you know?”

White-lock shook his head. “It is now mired in the bottomlands a few miles from the border. Perhaps they will leave it behind. If not …” The Kagonesti elf shrugged. It was simply another idiocy of the enemy that he could not predict or fathom.

“You bring good news,” Kith noted with satisfaction. He planted his hands on his hips and looked at the ridgeline above, where Parnigar and his footmen were returning. Many waved captured human banners or held aloft helmets with long, trailing plumes. Every so often he saw a dejected and disarmed human scuttling upward and disappearing over the ridge as if he still feared for his life.

Today Kith and the Wildrunners had directed a sharp blow against the central wing of the human army. He hoped the confusion and frustration of the elven attack would delay their march for several days. The news from the south was encouraging. It would take months for a threat to develop there. But what of the north?

His worries lingered as the Wildrunners quickly reformed from battle into march formation. They would pass through partially forested terrain, so the elven army moved in five broad, irregular columns. They followed parallel routes, with about a quarter of a mile between columns. If necessary, they could easily outdistance any human army, whether mounted or on foot.

Kith-Kanan, with Parnigar and a company of riders, remained behind until sunset. He was pleased to see the human army encamp at the scene of the attack. In the morning, he suspected, they would send forth huge and cumbersome reconnaissances, none of which would find any trace of the elves.

Finally the last of the Wildrunners, with Kith in the lead, turned their stocky, fast horses to the west. They would leave the field in possession of the foe, but a foe a little more bewildered, a little more frightened, than the day before.

The elven riders passed easily along forest trails at a fast walk, and at a canter through moonlit meadows. It was as they crossed one of these that movement in the fringe of the treeline pulled Kijo up sharply. A trio of riders approached. Kith recognized the first two as members of his guard.

“A messenger, sir – from the north.” The guards puffed aside as Kith stared in shock at the third rider.

The elf slumped in his saddle like a corpse that had been placed astride a horse. As he looked toward Kith-Kanan, his eyes flickered with a momentary hope.

“We tried to hold them back, sir – to harass them, as you commanded,” the elf reported in a rush. “The human wing to the north moved onto the plain, and we struck them!”

The scout’s voice belied his looks. It was taut and firm, the voice of a man who spoke the truth and who desperately wanted to be believed. Now he shook his head. “But no matter how quickly we moved, they moved more quickly.

They struck at us, sir! They wiped out a hundred elves in one camp and routed the Kagonesti back to the woods! They move with unbelievable stealth and speed.”

“They advance southward, then?” Kith-Kanan asked, instinctively knowing the answer, for he immediately understood that the human commander of the northern wing must be an unusually keen and aggressive foe.

“Yes! Faster than I would have believed, had I not seen it myself. They ride like the wind, these humans. They have surrounded most of the northern pickets. I alone escaped.”

The messenger’s eyes met Kith’s, and the elf spoke with all the intensity of his soul. “But that is not the worst of it, my general! Now they sweep to the east of my own path. Already you may be cut off from Sithelbec.”

“Impossible!” Kith barked the denial. The fortress, or city, of Sithelbec was his headquarters and his base of operations. It was far to the rear of the battle zone. “There can’t be any humans within a hundred miles of there.”

But again he looked into the eyes of the messenger, and he had to believe the terrible news. “All right,” he said grimly. “They’ve stolen a march on us. It’s time for the Wildrunners to seize it back.”

Chapter 3

THAT NIGHT,
IN THE ARMY OF ERGOTH

The sprawling tent stood in the center of the vast encampment. Three peaks stood high, marking the poles that divided the shelter into a trio of chambers.

Though the stains of the season’s campaign marked its sides, and seams showed where the top had been mended, the colorless canvas structure had a certain air about it, as if it was a little more important, a little more proud than the tents flowing to the horizon around it.

The huge camp was not a permanent gathering, and so the rows of straight-backed tents ran haphazardly, wherever the rolling ground, crisscrossed by numerous ravines, allowed. Green pastures, feeding grounds for twenty thousand horses, marked the hinges of the encampment. As dusk settled, the army’s shelters lined up in gray anonymity, except for this high, three-peaked tent.

The inside of that structure, as well, would never be mistaken for the abode of some soldier. Here cascades of silken draperies – deep browns, rich golds, and the iridescent black that was so popular among Ergothian nobles – covered the sides, blocking any view of the harsh realities beyond the canvas walls.

Suzine des Quivalin sat in the tent, studying a crystal glass before her. Her coppery hair no longer coiled about the tiara of diamond-studded platinum.

Instead, it gathered in a bun at the back of her head, though its length still cascaded more than a foot down her back. She wore a practical leather skirt, but her blouse was of fine silk. Her skin was clean, making her unique among all these thousands of humans.

Indeed, captains and sergeants and troopers alike grumbled about the favors shown to the general’s woman – hot water for bathing! A luxurious tent – ten valuable horses were required just to haul her baggage.

Still, though grumbling occurred, none of it happened within earshot of the commander. General Giarna led his force with skill and determination, but he was a terrifying man who would brook no argument, whether it be about his tactics or his woman’s comforts. Thus the men kept the remarks very quiet and very private.

Now Suzine sat upon a large chair, cushioned with silk-covered pillows of down, but she didn’t take advantage of that softness. Instead, she sat at the edge of the seat, tension visible in her posture and in the rapt concentration of her face as she studied the crystal surface before her.

The glass looked like a normal mirror, but it didn’t show a reflection of the lady’s very lovely face. Instead, as she studied the image, she saw a long line of foot soldiers. They were clean-shaven, blond of hair, and carried long pikes or thin, silver swords.

She watched the army of Kith-Kanan.

For a time, she touched the mirror, and her vision ran back and forth along the winding column. Her lips moved silently as she counted longbows and pikes and horses.

She watched the elves form and march. She noted the precision with which the long, fluid columns moved across the plains, retaining their precise intervals as they did so.

But then her perusal reached the head of the column, and here she lingered.

She studied the one who rode at the head of that force, the one she knew was Kith-Kanan, twin brother to the elven ruler.

She admired his tall stance in the saddle, the easy, graceful way that he raised his hand, gesturing to his outriders or summoning a messenger. Narrow wings rose to a pair of peaks atop his dark helmet. His dark plate mail looked worn, and a heavy layer of dust covered it, yet she could discern its quality and the easy way he wore it, as comfortably as many a human would wear his soft cotton tunic.

Her lips parted slightly, and she didn’t sense the pace of her breathing slowly increase. The lady did not hear the tent flap move behind her, so engrossed was she in her study of the handsome elven warrior.

Then a shadow fell across her, and she looked up with a sharp cry. The mirror faded until it showed only the lady, her face twisted in an expression of guilt mixed with indignation.

“You could announce your presence,” she snapped, standing to face the tall man who had entered.

“I am commander of the camp. General Giarna of Ergoth need announce his presence to no one, save the emperor himself,” the armor-plated figure said quietly. His black eyes fixed upon the woman’s, then shifted to the mirror.

These eyes of the Boy General frightened her – they were hardly boyish, and not entirely human, either. Dark and brooding, they sometimes blazed with an internal fire that was fueled, she sensed, by something that was beyond her understanding. At other times, however, they gaped black and empty. She found this dispassionate void even more frightening than his rage.

Suddenly he snarled and Suzine gasped in fright. She would have backed away, save for the fact that her dressing table blocked any retreat. For a moment, she felt certain he would strike her. It would not be the first time. But then she looked into his eyes and knew that, for the moment, anyway, she was safe.

Instead of violent rage, she saw there a hunger that, while frightening, did not presage a blow. Instead, it signaled a desperate yearning for a need that could never be satisfied. It was one of the things that had first drawn her to him, this strange hunger. Once she had felt certain that she could slake it.

Now she knew better. The attraction that had once drawn her to Giarna had waned, replaced for the most part by fear, and now when she saw that look in his eyes, she mostly pitied him.

The general grunted, shaking his head wearily. His short, black hair lay sweaty and tousled on his head. She knew he would have had his helmet on until he entered the tent, and then taken it off in deference to her.

“Lady Suzine, I seek information and have been worried by your long silence.

Tell me, what have you seen in your magic mirror?”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” replied Suzine. Her eyes fell, and she hoped that the flush across her cheeks couldn’t be noticed. She took a deep breath, regaining her composure.

“The elven army countermarches quickly – faster than you expected,” she explained, her voice crisp and efficient. “They will confront you before you can march to Sithelbec.”

General Giarna’s eyes narrowed, but his face showed no other emotion. “This captain … what’s his name?”

“Kith-Kanan,” Suzine supplied.

“Yes. He seems alert – more so than any human commander I’ve faced. I would have wagered a year’s pay that he couldn’t have moved so fast.”

“They march with urgency. They make good tune, even through the woods.”

“They’ll have to stick to the forests,” growled the general, “because as soon as I meet them, I shall rule the plains.”

Abruptly General Giarna looked at Suzine inquiringly. “What is the word on the other two wings?”

“Xalthan is still paralyzed. The lava cannon is mired in the lowlands, and he seems unwilling to advance until the gnomes free it.”

The general snorted in amused derision. “Just what I expected from that fool.

And Barnet?”

“The central wing has gone into a defensive formation, as if they expect attack. They haven’t moved since yesterday afternoon.”

“Excellent. The enemy comes to me, and my erstwhile allies twiddle their thumbs!” General Giarna’s black beard split apart as he grinned. “When I win this battle, the emperor cannot help but realize who his greatest warrior is.”

He turned and paced, speaking more to himself than to her. “We will drive against him, break him before Sithelbec! We have assurances that the dwarves will stay out of the war, and the elves alone cannot hope to match our numbers. The victory will be mine!”

He turned back to her, those dark eyes flaming again, and Suzine felt another kind of fear – the fear of the doe as it trembles before the slavering jaws of the wolf. Again the general whirled in agitation, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand.

Suzine cast a sidelong glance at the mirror, as if she feared someone might be listening. The surface was natural, reflecting only the pair in the tent. In the mirror, she saw General Giarna step toward her. She turned to face him as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

She knew what he wanted, what she would – she must – give him. Their contact was brief and violent. Giarna’s passion contorted him, as if she was the vent for all of his anxieties. The experience bruised her, gave her a sense of uncleanliness that nearly brought her to despair. Afterward, she wanted to reach out and cover the mirror, to smash it or at least turn it away.

Instead, she hid her feelings, as she had learned to do so well, and then lay quietly as Giarna rose and dressed, saying nothing. Once he looked at her, and she thought he was going to speak.

Suzine’s heart pounded. Did he know what she was thinking? She thought of the face in the mirror again – that elven face. But General Giarna only scowled as he stood before her. After several moments, he spun on his heel and stalked from the tent. She heard the pacing of his charger without, and then the clatter of hooves as the general galloped away.

Hesitantly, inevitably, she turned back to the mirror.

Chapter 4

IN PITCHED BATTLE

The two armies wheeled and skirmished across the flatlands, using the forests for cover and obstruction, making sharp cavalry sweeps and sudden ambushes. Lives expired, men and elves suffered agony and maiming, and yet the great bodies of the two armies did not contact each other.

General Giarna’s human force drove toward Sithelbec, while Kith-Kanan’s Wildrunners countermarched to interpose themselves between the Ergothian army and its destination. The humans moved quickly, and it was only the effort of an all-night forced march that finally brought the exhausted elves into position.

Twenty thousand Silvanesti and Kagonesti warriors finally gathered into a single mass and prepared a defense, tensely awaiting the steadily advancing human horde. The elven warriors averaged three to four hundred years of age, and many of their captains had seen six or more centuries. If they survived the battle and the war, they could look forward to more centuries, five or six hundred years, perhaps, of peaceful aging.

The Silvanesti bore steel weapons of fine craftsmanship, arrowheads that could punch through plate mail and swords that would not shatter under the most crushing of blows. Many of the elves had some limited proficiency in magic, and these were grouped in small platoons attached to each company.

Though these elves, too, would rely upon sword and shield to survive the battle, their spells could provide a timely and demoralizing counterpunch.

The Wildrunners also had some five hundred exceptionally fleet horses, and upon these were mounted the elite lancers and archers who would harass and confuse the enemy. They wore the grandest armor, shined to perfection, and each bore his personal emblem embroidered in silk upon his breast.

This force stood against a human army of more than fifty thousand men. The humans averaged about twenty-five years of age, the oldest veterans having seen a mere four or five decades of life. Their weapons were crudely crafted by elven standards, yet they possessed a deep strength. The blade might grow dull, but only rarely would it break.

The human elite included riders, numbering twenty thousand. They bore no insignia, nor did they wear armor of metal. Instead, they were a ragged, evil-looking lot, with many a missing tooth, eye, or ear. Unlike their elven counterparts, almost all were bearded, primarily because of a disdain of shaving, or indeed grooming of any kind.

But they carried within them an inner thirst for a thing uniquely human in character. Whether it be called glory or excitement or adventure, or simply cruelty or savagery, it was a quality that made the short-lived humans feared and distrusted by all the longer-lived races of Krynn.

Now this burning ambition, propelled by the steel-bladed drive of General Giarna, pushed the humans toward Sithelbec. For two days, the elven army appeared to stand before them, only to melt away at the first sign of attack. By the third day, however, they stood within march of that city itself.

Kith-Kanan had reached the edge of the tree cover. Beyond lay nothing but open field to the gates of Sithelbec, some ten miles away. Here the Wildrunners would have to stand.

The reason for falling back this far became obvious to elf and human alike as the Wildrunners reached their final position. Silver trumpets blared to the eastward, and a column of marchers hove into view.

“Hail the elves of Silvanost!”

Cries of delight and welcome erupted from the elven army as, with propitious timing, the five thousand recruits sent by Sithas two months earlier marched into the Wildrunners’ camp. At their head rode Kencathedrus, the stalwart veteran who had given Kith-Kanan his earliest weapons training.

“Hah! I see that my former student still plays his war games!” The old veteran, his narrow face showing the strain of the long march, greeted Kith before the commander’s tent. Wearily Kencathedrus lifted a leg over his saddle. Kith helped him to stand on the ground.

“I’m glad you made it,” Kith-Kanan greeted his old teacher, clasping his arms warmly. “It’s a long march from the city.”

Kencathedrus nodded curtly. Kith-Kanan would have thought the gesture rude, except that he knew the old warrior and his mannerisms. Kencathedrus represented the purest tradition of the House Royal – the descendents, like Kith-Kanan and Sithas, of Silvanos himself. Indeed, they were distant cousins in some obscure way Kith had never understood.

But more than blood relative, Kencathedrus was in many ways the mentor of Kith-Kanan the warrior. Strict to the point of obsession, the teacher had drilled the pupil in the instinctive use of the longsword and in the swift and repetitive shooting of the bow until such tasks had become second nature.

Now Kencathedrus looked Kith-Kanan up and down. The general was clad in unadorned plate mail, with a simple steel helmet, unmarked by any sign of rank.

“What about your crest?” he asked. “Don’t you fight in the name of Silvanos, of the House Royal?”

Kith nodded. “As always. However, my guards have persuaded me that there’s no sense in making myself a target. I dress like a simple cavalryman now.” He took Kencathedrus’s arm, noting that the old elf moved with considerable stiffness.

“My back isn’t what it used to be,” admitted the venerable captain, stretching.

“It’s likely to get some more exercise soon,” Kith warned him. “Thank the gods you arrived when you did!”

“The human army?” Kencathedrus looked past the elves, lined up for battle.

Kith told the captain what he knew.

“A mile away, no more. We have to face them here. The alternative is to fall back into the fortress, and I’m not ready to concede the plains.”

“You’ve chosen a good field, it seems.” Kencathedrus nodded at the stands of trees around them. The area consisted of many of these thick groves, separated by wide, grassy fields. “How many stand against us?”

“Just a third of the entire Ergoth army – that’s the good news. The other two wings have bogged down, more than a hundred miles away right now. But this one is the most dangerous. The commander is bold and adventurous. I had to march all night to get in front of him, and now my troops are exhausted as he prepares his attack.”

“You forget,” Kencathedrus chided Kith, almost harshly. “You stand with elves against a force of mere humans.”

Kith-Kanan looked at the old warrior fondly, but he shook his head at the same time. “These ‘mere’ humans wiped out a hundred of my Wildrunners in one ambush. They’ve covered four hundred miles in three weeks.” Now the leader’s voice took on a tone of authority. “Do not underestimate them.”

Kencathedrus studied Kith-Kanan before nodding his agreement. “Why don’t you show me the lines,” he suggested. “I presume you want us ready at first light.”

*

As it happened, General Giarna gave Kith’s force one more day to rest and prepare. The human army shifted and marched and expanded, all behind the screen of several groves of trees. Kith sent a dozen Kagonesti Wildrunners to spy, counting on the natural vegetation that they used so well to cover them. Only one returned, and he to report that the human sentries were too thick for even the skilled elves to pass without detection.

The elven force took advantage of the extra day, however. They constructed trenches along much of their front, and in other places, they laid long, sharp stakes in the earth to form a wall thrusting outward. These stakes would protect much of the front from the enemy horsemen Kith knew to number in the thousands.

Parnigar supervised the excavation, racing from site to site, shouting and cursing. He insulted the depth of one trench, the width of another. He cast aspersions on the lineage of the elves who had done the work. The Wildrunners leaped to obey out of respect, not fear. All along the line they dug in, proving that they used the pick and the spade as well as the longsword and pike.

Midafternoon slowly crept toward dusk. Kith restlessly worked his way back and forth along the line. Eventually he came to the reserve, where the men of Silvanost recovered from their long march under the shrewd tutelage of Kencathedrus. That captain stepped up to Kith-Kanan as the general dismounted from Kijo.

“Odd how they work for him,” noted the older elf, indicating Parnigar. “My elves wouldn’t even look at an officer who talked to them like that.”

Kith-Kanan looked at him curiously, realizing that he spoke the truth. “The Wildrunners here on the plains are a different kind of force than you know from the city,” he pointed out.

He looked at the reserve force, consisting of the five thousand elves who had marched with Kencathedrus. Even at ease, they lounged in the sun in neat ranks across the grassy meadows. A formation of Wildrunners, Kith reflected, would have collected in the areas of shade.

The teacher nodded, still skeptical. He looked across the front, toward the trees that screened the enemy army. “Do you know their deployments?” asked Kencathedrus.

“No.” Kith admitted. “We’ve been shut off all day. I’d fall back if I could.

They’ve had too much time to prepare an attack, and I’d love to set those preparations to waste. Your old lesson comes to mind: ‘Don’t let the enemy have the luxury of following his plan’.”

Kencathedrus nodded, and Kith nearly growled in frustration as he continued.

“But I can’t move back. These trees are the last cover between here and Sithelbec. There’s not so much as a ditch to hide behind if I abandon this position.”

All he could do was to deploy a company of skirmishers well to each flank of his position and hope they could provide him with warning of any sudden flanking thrust.

It was a night of restlessness throughout the camp, despite the exhaustion of the weary troops. Few of them slept for more than a few hours, and many campfires remained lit well past midnight as elves gathered around them and talked of past centuries, of their families – of anything but the terrible destiny that seemed to await them on the morrow.

Dew crept across the land in the darkest hours of night, becoming a heavy mist that flowed thickly through the meadows and twisted around the trunks in the groves. With it came a chill that woke every elf, and thus they spent the last hours of darkness.

They heard the drums before dawn, a far-off rattle that began with shocking precision from a thousand places at once. Darkness shrouded the woods, and the mists of the humid night drifted like spirits among the nervous elves, further obscuring visibility.

Gradually the dark mist turned to pale blue. As the sky lightened overhead, the cadence of a great army’s advance swelled around the elves. The Wildrunners held to their pikes, or steadied their prancing horses. They checked their bowstrings and their quivers, and made certain that the bucklings on their armor held secure. Inevitably the blue light gave way to a dawn of vague, indistinct shapes, still clouded by the haze of fog.

The beat of the drums grew louder. The mist drifted across the fields, leaving even nearby clumps of trees nothing more than gray shadows. Louder still grew the precise tapping, yet nothing could be seen of the approaching force.

“There – coming through the pines!”

“I see them – over that way.”

“Here they come – from the ravine!”

Elves shouted, pointing to spots all along their front where shapes began to take form in the mist. Now they could see great, rippling lines of movement, as if waves rolled through the earth itself. The large, prancing figures of horsemen became apparent, several waves of them flexing among the ranks of infantry.

Abruptly, as suddenly as it had started, the drumming ceased. The formations of the human army appeared as darker shapes against the yellow grass and the gray sky. For a moment, time on the field, and perhaps across all the plains, across all of Ansalon, stood still. The warriors of the two armies regarded each other across a quarter-mile of ground. Even the wind died, and the mist settled low to the earth.

Then a shout arose from one of the humans and was echoed by fifty thousand voices. Swords bashed against shields, while trumpets blared and horses whinnied in excitement and terror.

In the next instant, the human wave surged forward, the roaring sound wave of the attack preceding it with terrifying force.

Now brassy notes rang from elven trumpets. Pikes rattled as their wielders set their weapons. The five hundred horses of the Wildrunner cavalry nickered and kicked nervously.

Kith-Kanan steadied Kijo. From his position in the center of the line, he had a good view of the advancing human tide. His bodyguards, increased to twelve riders today, stood in a semicircle behind him. He had insisted that they not obstruct his view of the field.

For a moment, he had a terrifying vision of the elven line’s collapse, the human horde sweeping across the plains and forests beyond like a swarm of insects. He shuddered in the grip of the fear, but then the swirl of events grabbed and held his attention.

The first shock of the charge came in the form of two thousand swordsmen, brandishing shields and howling madly. Dressed in thick leather jerkins, they raced ahead of their metal-armored comrades, toward the block of elven pikes standing firm in the center of Kith’s line.

The clash of swordsmen with the tips of those pikes was a horrible scene. The steel-edged blades of the pikes pierced the leather with ease as scores of humans impaled themselves from the force of the charge. A cheer went up from the Wildrunners as the surviving swordsmen turned to flee, leaving perhaps a quarter of their number writhing and groaning on the ground, at the very feet of the elves who had wounded them.

Now the focus shifted to the left, where human longbowmen advanced against an exposed portion of the Wildrunner line. Kith’s own archers fired back, sending a deadly shower against the press of men. But the human arrows, too, found marks among the tightly packed ranks, and elven blood soon flowed thick in the trampled grass.

Kith nudged Kijo toward the archers, watching volleys of arrows arc and cross through the air. The humans rushed forward and the elves stood firm. The elven commander urged his steed faster, sensing the imminent clash.

Then the human advance wavered and slowed. Kith saw Parnigar, standing beside the archers.

“Now!” cried the sergeant-major, gesturing toward a platoon of elves standing beside him. A few dozen in number, these elves wore swords at their sides but had no weapons in their hands. It was their bare hands that they raised, fingers extended toward the rushing humans.

A bright flash of light made Kith blink. Magic missiles, crackling blasts of sorcerous power, exploded from Parnigar’s platoon. A whole line of men dropped, slain so suddenly that members of the rear ranks tripped and tumbled over the bodies. Again the light flashed, and another volley of magic ripped into the humans.

Some of those struck screamed aloud, crying for their gods or for their mothers. Others stumbled back, panicked by the sorcerous attack. A whole company, following the decimated formation, stopped in its tracks and then turned to flee. In another moment, the mass of human bowmen streamed away, pursued by another volley of the keen elven arrows.

Yet even as this attack failed, Kith sensed a crisis on his left. A line of human cavalry, three thousand snorting horses bearing armored lancers, thundered through the rapidly thinning mist. The charge swept forward with a momentum that made the previous attacks look like parade-ground drills.

Before the horsemen waited a line of elves with swords and shields, soft prey for the thundering riders. To the right and left of them, the sharp stakes jutted forward, proof against the cavalry attack. But the gaps in the line had to be held by troops, and now these elves faced approaching doom.

“Archers – give cover,” Kith shouted as Kijo raced across the lines. Companies of elven longbow wheeled and released their missiles, scoring hits among the horsemen. But still the charge pounded forward.

“Fall back! Take cover in the trees!” he shouted to the captains of the longsword companies, for there was no other choice.

Kith cursed himself in frustration, realizing that the human commander had forced him to commit his pikes against the initial charge. Now came the horses, and his companies of pikes, the only true defense against a wave of cavalry, were terribly out of position.

Then he stared in astonishment. As more arrows fell among the riders, suddenly the horsemen wheeled about, racing away from the elven position before the defenders could follow Kith’s orders to withdraw. The astonished elven swordsmen watched the horses and the riders flee, pursued by a desultory shower of arrows. The elven defenders could only wonder at the fortuitous turn of events.

In the back of Kith’s mind, something whispered a warning. This had to be a trick, he told himself. Certainly the arrows hadn’t been thick and deadly enough to halt that awe-inspiring charge. Less than fifty riders, and no more than two dozen horses, lay in the field before them. His scouts had given him a good count of the human cavalry. Though he had not been able to study these, he suspected he had seen only about half the force.

*

“Our men fall back as you ordered,” reported Suzine, her eyes locked upon the violent images in her mirror. The glass rested on a table, and she sat before it – table, woman, and mirror, all encased in a narrow shroud of canvas, to keep the daylight from the crucial seeing device. She never lost view of the elven commander who sat straight and proud in his saddle, every inch the warrior of House Royal. Behind her, pacing in taut excitement, General Giarna looked over her shoulder.

“Excellent! And the elves – what do you see of them?”

“They stand firm, my lord.”

“What?” General Giarna’s voice barked violently against her, filling the small canvas shelter where they observed the battle. “You’re wrong! They must attack!”

Suzine flinched. The image in the mirror – a picture of long ranks of elven warriors, holding their positions, failing to pursue the bait of the human retreat – wavered slightly.

She felt the general’s rage explode, and then the image faded. Suzine saw only her own reflection and the hideous face of the man behind her.

*

“My lord! Let us hit them now, while they fall back in confusion!” Kith turned to see Kencathedrus beside him. His old teacher rode a prancing mare, and the weariness of the march from Silvanost was totally gone from his face. Instead, the warrior’s eyes burned, and his gauntleted fist clung tightly to the hilt of his sword. “It has to be a trick,” Kith countered. “We didn’t drive them away that easily.”

“For the gods’ sakes, Kith-Kanan – these are humans! The cowardly scum will run from a loud noise! Let’s follow up and destroy them!”

“No!” Kith’s voice was harsh, full of command, and Kencathedrus’s face whitened with frustration.

“We do not face an ordinary general,” Kith-Kanan continued, feeling that he owed further explanation to the one who had girded his first sword upon him.

“He hasn’t failed to surprise me yet, and I know we have seen but a fraction of his force.”

“But if they fly they will escape! We must pursue!” Kencathedrus couldn’t help himself.

“The answer is no. If they are escaping, so be it. If they attempt to pull us out of our position to trap us, they shall not.”

Another roar thundered across the fields before them, and more humans came into view, running toward the elves with all manner of weaponry. Great companies of longbowmen readied their missiles, while bearded axemen raised their heavy blades over their heads. Spearmen charged with gleaming points extended toward the enemy, while swordsmen banged their swords against their shields, advancing at a steady march.

Kencathedrus, shocked by the fresh display of human might and vigor, looked at the general with respect. “You knew,” he said wonderingly.

Kith-Kanan shrugged and shook his head. “No – I simply suspected. Perhaps because I had a good teacher.”

The older elf growled, appreciating the remark but annoyed with himself.

Indeed, they both realized that, had the elves advanced when Kencathedrus had desired, they would have been swiftly overrun, vulnerable in the open field.

Kencathedrus rejoined his reserve company, and Kith-Kanan immersed himself in the fight. Thousands of humans and elves clashed along the line, and hundreds died. Weapons shattered against shields, and bones shattered beneath blades. The long morning gave way to afternoon, but the passing of time meant nothing to the desperate combatants, for whom each moment could be their last.

The tide of battle surged back and forth. Companies of humans turned and fled, many of them before their charging ranks even reached the determined elves. Others hacked and slew their way into the defenders, and occasionally a company of elves gave way. Then the humans poured through the gap like the surging surf, but always Kith-Kanan was there, slashing with his bloody sword, urging his elven lancers into the breach.

Wave after wave of humans surged madly across the trampled field, hurling themselves into the elves as if to shatter them with the sheer momentum of their charges. As soon as one company broke, one regiment fell back depleted and demoralized, another block of steel-tipped humanity lunged forward to take its place.

The Wildrunners fought until total exhaustion gripped each and every warrior, and then they fought some more. Their small, mobile companies banded together to form solid lines, shifted to deflect each new charge, and flowed sideways to fill gaps caused by their fallen or routed comrades. Always those plunging horses backed them up, and each time, as the line faltered, the elven cavalry thundered against the breakthrough, driving it back in disorder.

Those five hundred riders managed to seal every breach. By the time the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, Kith noticed a slackening in the human attacks. One company of swordsmen stumbled away, and for once there was no fresh formation to take their place in the attack. The din of combat seemed to fade somewhat, and then he saw another formation – a group of axemen – turn and lumber away from the fight. More and more of the humans broke off their attacks, and soon the great regiments of Ergoth streamed across the field, back toward their own lines.

Kith slumped wearily in his saddle, staring in suspicion at the fleeing backs of the soldiers. Could it be over? Had the Wildrunners won? He looked at the sun – about four good hours of daylight remained. The humans wouldn’t risk an encounter at night, he knew. Elven nightvision was one of the great proofs of the elder race’s superiority over its shorter-lived counterparts. Yet certainly the hour was not the reason for the humans’ retreat, not when they had been pressing so forcefully all along the line.

A weary Parnigar approached on foot. Kith had seen the scout’s horse cut down beneath him during the height of the battle. The general recognized his captain’s lanky walk, though Parnigar’s face and clothes were caked in mud and the blood of his slain enemies.

“We’ve held them, sir,” he reported, his face creasing into a disbelieving smile. Immediately, however, he frowned and shook his head. “Some three or four hundred dead, though. The day was not without its cost.”

Kith looked at the exhausted yet steady ranks of his Wildrunners. The pikemen held their weapons high, the archers carried bows at the ready, while those with swords honed their blades in the moments of silence and respite.

The formations still arrayed in full ranks, as if fresh and unblooded, but their ranks were shorter now. Organized in neat rows behind each company, covered with blankets, lay a quiet grouping of motionless forms.

At least the dead can rest, he thought, feeling his own weariness. He looked again to the humans, seeing that they still fled in disorder. Many of them had reached the tree line and were disappearing into the sheltering forest.

“My lord! My lord! Now is the time. You must see that.”

Kith turned to see Kencathedrus galloping up to him. The elven veteran reined in beside the general and gestured at the fleeing humans.

“You may be right.” Kith-Kanan had to agree. He saw the five thousand elves of Silvanost gathered in trim ranks, ready to advance the moment he gave the word. This was the chance to deliver a coup de grace that could send the enemy reeling all the way back to Caergoth.

“Quickly, my lord – they’re getting away.” Impatiently, his gray brows bristling, Kencathedrus indicated the ragged humans running in small clumps, like sheep, toward the sheltering woods in the distance.

“Very well – advance and pursue! But have a care for your flanks!”

*

“They must come after us now.” General Giarna’s horse twisted and pitched among the ranks of retreating humans, many of whom were bleeding or limping, supported by the shoulders of their sturdier comrades. Indeed, the Army of Ergoth had paid a hideous price for the daylong attacks, all of which were mere preliminaries to his real plan of battle.

The general paid no attention to the human suffering around him. Instead, his dark eyes fixed with a malevolent stare on the elven positions across the mud-spattered landscape. No movement yet – but they must advance. He felt this with a certainty that filled his dark heart with a bloodthirsty anticipation.

For a moment, he cast a sharp glance to the rear, toward the tiny tent that sheltered Suzine and her mirror. The gods should damn that bitch! How, in the heat of the fight, could her powers fail her? Why now – today?

His brow narrowed in suspicion, but he had no time now to wonder about the unreliability of his mistress. She had been a valuable tool, and it would be regrettable if that tool were no longer at his disposal.

Perhaps, as she had claimed, the tension of the great conflict had proven too distracting, too overpowering for her to concentrate. Or maybe the general’s looming presence had frightened her. In fact, General Giarna wanted to frighten her, just as he wanted to frighten everyone under his command.

However, if that fear was enough to disrupt her powers of concentration, than Suzine’s usefulness might be seriously limited.

No matter – at least for now. The battle could still be won by force of arms.

The key was to make the elves believe that the humans were beaten.

General Giarna’s pulse quickened then as he saw a line of movement across the field.

*

“Elves of Silvanost, advance!” The captain had already turned away from his commander. The reserve companies started forward at a brisk march, through the gaps in the spiked fence of the elven line. The companies of the Wildrunners, battered and weary, cleared the way for the attackers, whose gleaming spear points and shining armor stood out in stark contrast to the muddy, bloody mess around them. Nevertheless, the Wildrunners raised a hearty cheer as Kencathedrus led his troops into the attack. “On the double-charge!” His horse prancing eagerly beneath him, Kencathedrus brandished his sword and urged his complement forward. The troops needed no prodding. All day they had seen their fellow countrymen die at the hands of these rapacious savages, and now they had the chance to take vengeance.

The panicked humans cast down weapons, shields, helmets – anything loose and cumbersome – in their desperate flight. They scattered away from the charging elves, racing for the shelter of any clump of trees or thick brush they could find.

The warriors of Silvanost, disciplined even at their steady advance, remained in close-meshed lines. They parted at the obstacles, while several who were armed with shortswords pressed into the grove, quickly dispatching the hapless humans who sought refuge there.

But even so, it was clear that the great bulk of the routed troops would escape, so rapid was their flight. The close ranks of the elves could not keep pace. Finally Kencathedrus slowed his company to a brisk walk, allowing the elves to catch their breath as they approached the first large expanse of forest.

“Archers, stand forward to the flanks!” Kith-Kanan didn’t know why he gave the order, but suddenly he saw how vulnerable were the five thousand elves, in the event that he had been tricked. Kencathedrus and his regiment had already advanced nearly half a mile ahead of the main army, while the fleeing humans seemed to melt away before them.

Two blocks of elves – his keenest longbows, some thousand strong each – trotted ahead.

“Pikes – in the middle, quickly.” One more unit Kith-Kanan sent forward, this one consisting of his fiercest veterans, armed with their deadly, fifteen-foot weapons with razor-sharp steel tips. They advanced at a trot, filling some of the gap between the two blocks of longbows.

“Horsemen! To me!” A third command brought the proud elven cavalry thundering to their commander. It seemed to Kith-Kanan that Kencathedrus and his company were now in terrible danger. He had to catch up and give them support.

Flanked by his mounted bodyguards, the commander led his horsemen through the lines, in a wide sweep toward the right of Kencathedrus’s company. The elven archers carried their weapons ready. Pikes rattled behind them. Had he done everything that he could to protect the advance?

Kith sensed something in the air as the late afternoon seemed to grow sinister around him. He listened carefully; his eyes studied the opposite tree line, scanned to the right and left to the limits of his vision.

Nothing.

Yet now some of his elves sensed the same thing, the indefinable inkling of something terrible and awesome and mighty. Warriors nervously fingered their weapons. The Wildrunners’ horses moved restlessly, shaking off the weariness of many hours’ battle.

Then a rumble of deep thunder permeated the air. It began as a faint drumming, but in Kith-Kanan’s mind, it grew to a deafening explosion within a few seconds.

“Sound the withdrawal!” He shouted at the trumpeters as he looked left, then right – where, by all the gods?

He saw them appear, like a wave of brown grass on the horizon, to both sides – countless thousands of humans mounted on thundering horses, sweeping around the patches of woods, across the open prairie, pounding closer, with all the speed of the wind.

The horns blared, and Kith saw that Kencathedrus had already sensed the trap. Now the elves of Silvanost retired toward the Wildrunners’ lines at a quick pace. But all who looked on could see that they would be too late.

The archers and pikemen advanced, desperate to aid their countrymen. They showered the human cavalry with arrows, while the long pikes bristled before the archers, protecting them from the charge.

But the elves of Silvanost had no such protection. The human cavalry slammed into them, and rank after rank of the elven infantry fell beneath the cruel hooves and keen, unfeeling steel.

The pikemen and archers fell back slowly, carefully, still shredding the cavalry with deadly arrows, felling the horsemen by the hundred with each volley. Yet thousands upon thousands of the humans trampled across the plain, slaughtering the stranded regiment.

Kith-Kanan led his riders into the flank of the human charge, little caring that there were ten or twenty humans for every one of his elves. With his own sword, he cut a leering, bearded human from the saddle. Horses screamed and bucked around them, and in moments, the two companies of cavalry mingled, each man or elf fighting the foe he found close at hand.

More blood flowed into the already soaked ground. Kith saw a human lancer drive a bloodstained lance toward his heart. One of his loyal bodyguards flung himself from his saddle and took the weapon through his own throat, deflecting the blow that would have surely been fatal. With a surge of hatred, Kith spurred Kijo forward, chopping savagely through the neck and striking the lancer’s head from his shoulders. Spouting blood like an obscene geyser, the corpse toppled from the saddle, lost in the chaos of the melee before it struck the ground.

Kith saw another of his faithful guards fall, this time to a human swordsman whose horse skipped nimbly away. The fight swirled madly, flashing images of blood, screaming horses, dying men and elves. If he had paused to think, he would have regretted the charge that brought his riders out here to aid Kencathedrus. Now, it seemed, both units faced annihilation.

Desperately Kith-Kanan looked for a sign of the elves of Silvanost. He saw them through the melee. Led by a grim-faced Kencathedrus, the elven reserve force struggled to break free of the deadly trap. Finally they tore from their neat ranks in a headlong dash through the sea of human horsemen toward the safety of the Wildrunner lines.

Miraculously, many of them made it. They scrambled between the thick wall of stakes, into the welcoming arms of their comrades, while the stampeding cavalry surged and bucked just beyond. By the dozens and scores and hundreds, they limped and dodged and tumbled to safety, until more than two thousand of them, including Kencathedrus, had emerged. The captain tried to turn and limp back into the fray in a foredoomed effort to bring forth more of his men, but he was restrained in the grasp of two sergeantsmajor.

The archers, too, fell back, and then it was only the riders caught on the field. Isolated pockets of elven cavalry twisted away from the sea of human horsemen, breaking for the shelter of their lines. Kith-Kanan himself, however, after having led the charge, was now caught in the middle of the enemy forces.

His arm grew leaden with fatigue. Blood from a cut on his forehead streamed into his eyes. His helmet was gone, knocked from his head by a human’s bashing shield. His loyal guards – the few who still lived – fought around him, but now the outlook was grim.

The humans fell back, just far enough to avoid the slashing elven blades.

Kith-Kanan and a group of perhaps two dozen elven riders gasped for breath, surrounded by a ring of death – more than a thousand human lancers, swordsmen, and archers.

With a groan of despair, he cast his sword to the ground. The rest of the survivors immediately followed his example.

*

As darkness finally closed about them, the humans turned back from the elven line. Kencathedrus and Parnigar knew that it was only nightfall that had prevented the complete collapse of their position. They knew, too, that the exhausted army would have to retreat now, even before the darkness was complete. They would have to take shelter in Sithelbec early the following day, before the deadly human cavalry could catch them in the open. The entire force of the Wildrunners could suffer the fate of the unblooded elves of Silvanost.

It seemed to the elven leaders that the day couldn’t have been any more disastrous. Despair settled around them like a bleak cloud as they considered the worst news of all: Kith-Kanan, their commander and the driving force behind the Wildrunners, was lost – possibly captured, but more likely killed.

The army marched, heads down and shambling, toward the security – and the confinement – of Sithelbec.

Sometime after midnight, it started to rain, and it continued to pour throughout the night and even past the gray, featureless dawn. The miserable army finally reached Sithelbec, closing the gates behind the last of the Wildrunners, sometime around noon of the following gray, drizzling day.

Chapter 5

AFTER THE BATTLE

Suzine awakened to a summons from the general, delivered by a bronze-helmed lieutenant of crossbows. The woman felt vague relief that General Giarna hadn’t come to her in person. Indeed, she hadn’t seen him since before the battle’s climax, when his trap had snared so much of the elven army.

Her relief had grown from the previous night, when she had feared that he would desire her. General Giarna frightened her often, but there was something deeper and more abiding about the terror he inspired after he had led his troops in battle.

The darkness that seemed always to linger in his eyes became, in those moments, like a bottomless well of despair and hopelessness, as if his hunger for killing could never be sated. The more the blood flowed around him, the greater his appetite became.

He would take her then, using her like he was some kind of parasite, unaware and uncaring of her feelings. He would hurt her and, when he was finished, cast her roughly aside, his own fundamental needs still raging.

But after this battle, his greatest victory to date, he had stayed away from her. She had retired early the night before, dying to look into her mirror, to ascertain Kith-Kanan’s whereabouts. She felt a terrible fear for his safety, but she hadn’t dared to use her glass for fear of the general. He mustn’t suspect her growing fascination with Kith-Kanan.

Now she dressed quickly and fetched her mirror, safe in a felt-lined wooden case, and then allowed the officer to lead her along the column of tents to General Giarna’s shelter of black silk. The lieutenant held the door while she entered, blinking for a moment as she adjusted to the dim light.

And then it seemed that her world exploded.

The file of muddy elven prisoners, many of them bruised, stood at resentful attention. There were perhaps a score of them, each with a watchful swordsman right behind him, but Suzine’s eyes flashed immediately to him.

She recognized Kith-Kanan in the instant that she saw him, and she had to forcibly resist an urge to run to him. She wanted to look at him, to touch him in all the ways she could not through her mirror. She fought an urge to knock the sword-wielding guard aside.

Then she remembered General Giarna. Her face flushed, she felt perspiration gather on her brow. He was watching her closely. Forcing an expression of cool detachment, she turned to him.

“You summoned me, General?”

The commander seemed to look through her, with a gaze that threatened to wither her soul. His eyes yawned before her like black chasms, menacing pits that made her want to hurriedly step back from the edge.

“The interrogation continues. I want you to witness their testimony and gauge the truth of their replies.” His voice was like a cold gust of air.

For the first time, Suzine noticed an additional elven form. This one stretched facedown on the carpeted floor of the tent, a tiny hole at the base of his neck showing where he had been stabbed.

Numbly she looked back. Kith-Kanan stood second from the end of the line, near where the killing had occurred. He paid no attention to her. The elf between him and the dead one looked in grimly concealed fear at the human general.

“Your strength!” demanded General Giarna. “How many troops garrison your fortress? Catapults? Ballistae? You will tell us about them all.”

The final sentence was a demand, not a question.

“The fortress is garrisoned by twenty thousand warriors, with more on the way!” blurted the prisoner beside the corpse. “Wizards and clerics, too —”

Suzine didn’t need the mirror to see that he lied; neither, apparently, did General Giarna. He chopped his hand once, and the swordsman behind the terrified speaker stabbed at the doomed elf. His blade severed the elf’s spinal cord and then plunged through his neck, emerging under the unfortunate warrior’s chin in a gurgling fountain of blood.

The next swordsman – the one behind Kith-Kanan – prodded his charge in the back, forcing him to stand a little straighter, as the general’s eyes came to rest upon him. But only for a moment, for the human leader allowed his scornful gaze to roam across the entire row of his captives.

“Which of you holds rank over the others?” inquired the general, casting his eyes along the line of remaining elves.

For the first time, Suzine realized that Kith-Kanan wore none of the trappings of his station. He was an anonymous rider among the elven warriors. Giarna didn’t recognize him! That revelation encouraged her to take a risk.

“My general,” she said quickly, hearing her voice as if another person was speaking, “could I have a word with you – away from the ears of the prisoners?”

He looked at her, his dark eyes boring into her. Was that annoyance she saw, or something darker?

“Very well,” he replied curtly. He took her arm in his hand and led her from the tent.

She felt the mirror’s case in her hand, seeking words as she spoke. “They are obviously willing to die for their cause. But perhaps, with a little patience, I can make them useful to us … alive.”

“You can tell me whether they speak the truth or not – but what good is that when they are willing to die with lies in their mouths?”

“But there is more to the glass,” she said insistently. “Given a quiet place and some time – and some close personal attention to one of these subjects – I can probe deeper than mere questions and answers. I can see into their minds, to the secret truths they would never admit to such as you.”

General Giarna’s black brows came together in a scowl. “Very well. I will allow you to try.” He led her back into the tent. “Which one will you start with?”

Trying to still the trembling in her heart, Suzine raised an imperious hand and indicated Kith-Kanan. She spoke to the guard behind him. “Bring this one to my tent,” she said matter-of-factly.

She avoided looking at the general, afraid those black eyes would paralyze her with suspicion or accusation. But he said nothing. He merely nodded to the guard behind Kith and the swordsman beside him, the one who had just slain the fallen elf. The pair of guards prodded Kith-Kanan forward, and Suzine preceded him through the silken flap of General Giarna’s tent.

They passed between two tents, the high canvas shapes screening them from the rest of the camp. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked, and finally she could no longer resist the urge to turn and look at him.

“What do you want with me?” he asked, his voice surprising her with its total lack of fear.

“I won’t hurt you,” she replied, suddenly angry when the elf smiled slightly in response.

“Move, you!” grunted one of the guards, stepping in front of his companion and waving his blade past Kith-Kanan’s face.

Kith-Kanan reached forward with the speed of a striking snake, seizing the guard’s wrist as the blade veered away from his face. Holding the man’s hand, the elf kicked him sharply in the groin. The swordsman gasped and collapsed.

His companion, the warrior who had slain the elf in the tent, gaped in momentary shock – a moment that proved to be his last. Kith pulled the blade from the fallen guard’s hand and, in the same motion, drove the point into the swordsman’s throat. He died, his jaw soundlessly working in an effort to articulate his shock.

The dead guard’s helmet toppled off as he fell, allowing his long blond hair to spill free when he collapsed, face first, on the ground.

Kith lowered the blade, ready to thrust it through the neck of the groaning man he had kicked. Then something stayed his hand, and he merely admonished the guard to be silent with a persuasive press of the blade against the man’s throat.

Turning to the one he had slain, Kith looked at the body curiously. Suzine hadn’t moved. She watched him in fascination, scarcely daring to breathe, as he brushed the blond hair aside with the toe of his boot.

The ear that was revealed was long and pointed.

“Do you have many elves in your army?” he asked.

“No – not many,” Suzine said quickly. “They are mostly from the ranks of traders and farmers who have lived in Ergoth and desire a homeland on the plains.”

Kith looked sharply at Suzine. There was something about this human woman …

She stood still, paralyzed not so much by fear for herself as by dismay. He was about to escape, to leave her!

“I thank you for inadvertently saving my life,” he said before darting toward the corner of a nearby tent.

“I know who you are!” she said, her voice a bare whisper.

He stopped again, torn between the need to escape and increasing curiosity about this woman and her knowledge.

“Thank you, too, then, for keeping the secret,” he said, with a short bow.

“Why did you …”

She wanted to tell him that she had watched him for a long time, had all but lain beside him, through the use of her mirror. Suzine looked at him now, and he was more glorious, prouder, and taller than she had ever imagined. She wanted to ask him to take her away with him – right now – but, instead, her mouth froze, her mind locked by terror.

In another moment, he had disappeared. It was several moments longer before she finally found the voice to scream.

*

The elation Kith-Kanan felt at his escape dissipated as quickly as the gates of Sithelbec shut behind him and enclosed him within the sturdy walls of the fortress. His stolen horse, staggering from exhaustion, stumbled to a halt, and the elf swung to the ground. He wondered, through his weariness, about the human woman who had given him his chance to flee. The picture of her face, crowned by that glory of red hair, remained indelibly burned into his mind. He wondered if he would ever see her again.

Around him loomed the high walls, with the pointed logs arrayed along the top. Below these, he saw the faces of his warriors. Several raised a halfhearted cheer at his return, but the shock of defeat hung over the Wildrunners like a heavy pall.

Sithelbec had grown rapidly in the last year, sprawling across the surrounding plain until it covered a circle more than a mile in diameter. The central keep of the fortress was a stone structure of high towers, soaring to needlelike spires in the elven fashion. Around this keep clustered a crowded nest of houses, shops, barracks, inns, and other buildings, all within other networks of walls, blockhouses, and battle platforms.

Expanding outward through a series of concentric palisades, mostly of wood, the fortress protected a series of wells within its walls, ensuring a steady supply of water. Food – mostly grain – had been stockpiled in huge barns and silos. Supplies of arrows and flammable oil, stored in great vats, had been collected along the walls’ tops. The greater part of Kith-Kanan’s army, through the alert withdrawal under Parnigar, had reached the shelter of those ramparts.

Yet as the Army of Ergoth moved in to encircle the fortress, the Wildrunners could only wait.

Now Kith-Kanan walked among them, making his way to the small office and quarters he maintained in the gatehouse of the central keep. He felt the tension, the fear that approached despair, as he looked at the wide, staring eyes of his warriors.

And even more than the warriors, there were the women and children. Many of the women were human, their children half-elves, wives and offspring of the western elves who made up the Wildrunners. Kith shared their sorrow as deeply as he felt that of the elven females who were here in even greater numbers.

They would all be eating short rations, he knew. The siege would inevitably last into the autumn, and he had little doubt the humans could sustain the pressure through the winter and beyond.

As he looked at the young ones, Kith felt a stab of pain. He wondered how many of them would see spring.

Chapter 6

AUTUMN,
YEAR OF THE RAVEN

Lord Quimant came to Sithas in the Hall of Audience. His wife’s cousin brought another elf – a stalwart-looking fellow, with lines of soot set firmly in his face, and the strapping, sinewy arms of a powerful wrestler – to see the Speaker of the Stars.

Sithas sat upon his emerald throne and watched the approaching pair. The Speaker’s green robe flowed around him, collecting the light of the throne and diffusing it into a soft glow that seemed to surround him. He reclined casually in the throne, but he remained fully alert.

Alert, in that his mind was working quickly. Yet his thoughts were many hundreds of miles and years away.

Weeks earlier, he had received a letter from Kencathedrus describing Kith-Kanan’s capture and presumed loss. That had been followed, barely two days later, by a missive from his brother himself, describing a harrowing escape: the battle with guards, the theft of a fleet horse, a mad dash from the encampment, and finally a chase that ended only after Kith-Kanan had led his pursuers to within arrow range of the great fortress of Sithelbec.

Sithelbec – named for his father, the former Speaker of the Stars. Many times Sithas had reflected on the irony, for his father had been slain on a hunting trip, practically with-in sight of the fortress’s walls. As far as Sithas knew, it had been his father’s first and only expedition to the western plains. Yet Sithel had been willing to go to war over those plains, to put the nation’s future at stake because of them. And now Sithas, his firstborn, had inherited that struggle. Would he live up to his father’s expectations?

Reluctantly Sithas forced his mind back to the present, to his current location.

He cast his eyes around his surroundings to force the transition in his thoughts.

A dozen elven guards, in silver breastplates and tall, plumed helmets, snapped their halberds to attention around the periphery of the hall. They stood impassive and silent as the noble lord marched toward the throne.

Otherwise the great hall, with its gleaming marble floor and the ceiling towering six hundred feet overhead, was empty.

Sithas looked at Quimant. The elven noble wore a long cloak of black over a silk tunic of light green. Tights of red, and soft, black boots, completed his ensemble.

Lord Quimant of Oakleaf was a very handsome elf indeed. But he was also intelligent, quick-witted, and alert to many threats and opportunities that might otherwise have missed Sithas’s notice.

“This is my nephew,” the lord explained. “Ganrock Ethu, master smith. I recommend him, my Speaker, for the position of palace smith. He is shrewd, quick to learn, and a very hard worker.”

“But Herrlock Redmoon has always handled the royal smithy,” Sithas protested. Then he remembered: Herrlock had been blinded the week before in a tragic accident, when he had touched spark to his forge. Somehow the kindled coal had exploded violently, destroying his eyes beyond the abilities of Silvanost’s clerics to repair. After seeing that the loyal smith was well cared for and as comfortable as possible, Sithas had promised to select a replacement.

He looked at the young elf before him. Ganrock’s face showed lines of maturity, and the thick muscle of his upper torso showed proof of long years of work.

“Very well,” Sithas agreed. “Show him the royal smithy and find out what he needs to get started.” He called to one of his guards and told the elf to accompany Ganrock Ethu to the forge area, which lay in the rear of the Palace of Quinari.

“Thank you, Your Eminence,” said the smith, with a sudden bow. “I shall endeavor to do fine work for you.”

“Very good,” replied the Speaker. Quimant lingered as the smith left the hall.

Lord Quimant’s narrow face tightened in determination as he turned back to Sithas.

“What is it, my lord? You look distressed.” Sithas raised a hand and bade Qiumant stand beside him.

“The Smelters Guild, Your Highness,” replied the noble elf. “They refuse – they simply refuse – to work their foundries during the hours of darkness. Without the additional steel, our weapon production is hamstrung, barely adequate for even peacetime needs.”

Sithas cursed quietly. Nevertheless, he was thankful that Quimant had informed him. The proud heir of Clan Oakleaf had greatly improved the efficiency of Silvanost’s war preparations by spotting details – such as this one – that would have escaped Sithas’s notice.

“I shall speak to the smelter Kerilar,” Sithas vowed. “He is a stubborn old elf, but he knows the importance of the sword. I will make him understand, if I have to.”

“Very good, Excellency,” said Lord Quimant, with a bow. He straightened again. “Is there news of the war?”

“Not since the last letter, a week ago. The Wildrunners remain besieged in Sithelbec, while the humans roam the disputed lands at will. Kith has no chance to break out. He’s now surrounded by a hundred thousand men.”

The lord shook his head grimly before fixing Sithas with a hard gaze. “He must be reinforced – there’s no other way. You know this, don’t you?”

Sithas met Quimant’s gaze with equal steadiness. “Yes – I do. But the only way I can recruit more troops is to conscript them from the city and the surrounding clan estates. You know what kind of dispute that will provoke!”

“How long can your brother hold his fort?”

“He has rations enough for the winter. The casualties of the battle were terrible, of course, but the remainder of his force is well disciplined, and the fortress is strong.”

The news of the battlefield debacle had hit the elven capital hard. As the knowledge spread that two thousand of the city’s young elves – two out of every five who had marched so proudly to the west – had perished in the fight, Silvanost had been shrouded in grief for a week.

Sithas learned of the battle at the same time as he heard that his brother had fallen and was most likely lost. For two days, his world had been a grim shroud of despair. Knowing that Kith had reached safety lightened the burden to some extent, but their prospects for victory still seemed nonexistent. How long would it be, he had agonized, before the rest of the Wildrunners fell to the overwhelming tide around them?

Then gradually his despair had turned to anger – anger at the shortsightedness of his own people. Elves had crowded the Hall of Audience on the Trial Days, disrupting the proceedings. The emotions of the city’s elves had been inflamed by the knowledge that the rest of the Wildrunners had suffered nowhere near the size of losses inflicted upon the elves of Silvanost. It was not uncommon now to hear voices raised in the complaint that the western lands should be turned over to the humans and the Wildrunner elves, to let them battle each other to extinction.

“Very well – so he can hold out.” Quimant’s voice was strong yet deferential. “But he cannot escape! We must send a fresh army, a large one, to give him the sinew he needs!”

“There are the dwarves. We have yet to hear from them,” Sithas pointed out.

“Pah! If they do anything, it will be too late! It seems that Than-Kar sympathizes with the humans as much as with us. The dwarves will never do anything so long as he remains their voice and their ears!”

Ah – but he is not their voice and ears. Sithas had that thought with some small satisfaction, but he said nothing to Quimant as the lord continued, though his thoughts considered the potential of hope. Tamanier Ambrodel, I am depending upon you!

“Still, we must tolerate him, I suppose. He is our best chance of an alliance.”

“As always, good cousin, your words are the mirror of my thoughts.” Sithas straightened in his throne, a signal that the interview drew to a close. “But my decision is still to wait. Kith-Kanan is secure for now, and we may learn more as time goes on.”

He hoped he was right. The fortress was strong, and the humans would undoubtedly require months to prepare a coordinated assault. But what then?

“Very well.” Quimant cleared his throat awkwardly, then added, “What is the word of my cousin? I have not seen her for some weeks now.”

“Her time is near,” Sithas offered. “Her sisters have come from the estates to stay with her, and she has been confined to bed by the clerics of Quenesti Pah.”

Quimant nodded. “Please give her my wishes when next you see her. May she give birth speedily, to a healthy child.”

“Indeed.”

Sithas watched the elegant noble walk from the hall. He was impressed by Quimant’s bearing. The lord knew his worth to the throne, proven in the half-year since he had come to Silvanost. He showed sensitivity to the desires of the Speaker and seemed to work well toward those ends.

He heard one of the side doors open and looked across the great hall as a silk-gowned female elf entered. Her eyes fell softly on the figure seated upon the brilliant throne with its multitude of green, gleaming facets.

“Mother,” said Sithas with delight. He didn’t see much of Nirakina around the palace during these difficult days, and this visit was a pleasant surprise. He was struck, as she approached him, by how much older she looked.

“I see you do not have attendants now,” she said quietly to Sithas, who rose and approached her. “So often you are busy with the affairs of state … and war.”

He sighed. “War has become the way of my life – the way all Silvanost lives now.” He felt a twinge of sadness for his mother. So often Sithas looked upon the death of his father as an event that had placed the burden of rule on his own shoulders. He tended to forget that it had, at the same time, made his mother a widow.

“Take a moment to walk with me, won’t you?” asked Nirakina, taking her son by the arm.

He nodded, and they walked in silence across the great hall of the tower to the crystal doors reserved for the royal family alone. These opened soundlessly, and then they were in the Gardens of Astarin. To their right were the dark wooden buildings of the royal stables, while before them beckoned the wondrous beauty of the royal gardens. Immediately Sithas felt a sense of lightness and ease.

“You need to do this more often,” said his mother, gently chiding. “You grow old before your time.” She held his arm loosely, letting him select the path they followed.

The gardens loomed around them – great hedges and thick bushes heavy with dewy blossoms; ponds and pools and fountains; small clumps of aspen and oak and fir. It was a world of nature, shaped and formed by elven clerics – devotees of the Bard King, Astarin – into a transcendent work of art.

“I thank you for bringing me through those doors,” Sithas said with a chuckle. “Sometimes I need to be reminded.”

“Your father, too, needed a subtle reminder now and then. I tried to give him that when it became necessary.”

For a moment, Sithas felt a wave of melancholy. “I miss him now more than ever. I feel so … unready to sit on his throne.”

“You are ready,” said Nirakina firmly. “Your wisdom is seeing us through the most difficult time since the Dragon Wars. But since you are about to become a father, you must realize that your life cannot be totally given over to your nation. You have a family to think about, as well.”

Sithas smiled. “The clerics of Quenesti Pah are with Hermathya at all times.

They say it will be any day now.”

“The clerics, and her sisters,” Nirakina murmured.

“Yes,” Sithas agreed. Hermathya’s sisters, Gelynna and Lyath, had moved into the palace as soon as his wife’s pregnancy had become known. They were pleasant enough, but Sithas had come to feel that his apartments were somehow less than his own now. It was a feeling he didn’t like but that he had tried to overlook for Hermathya’s sake.

“She has changed, Mother, that much you must see. Hermathya had become a new woman even before she knew about the child. She has been a support and a comfort to me, as if for the first time.”

“It is the war,” said Nirakina. “I have noticed this change you speak of, and it began with the war. She, her clan of Oakleaf, they all thrive upon this intensity and activity.” The elven woman paused, then added, “I noticed Lord Quimant leaving before I entered. You speak with him often. Is he proving himself useful?”

“Indeed, very. Does this cause you concern?”

Nirakina sighed, then shook her head. “I – no – no, it doesn’t. You are doing the right thing for Silvanesti, and if he can aid you, that is a good thing.”

Sithas stopped at a stone bench. His mother sat while he paced idly below overhanging branches of silvery quaking aspen that shimmered in the light breeze.

“Have you had word from Tamanier Ambrodel?” Nirakina asked.

Sithas smiled confidentially. “He has arrived at Thorbardin safely and hopes to get in touch with the Hylar. With any luck, he will see the king himself. Then we shall find out if this Than-Kar is doing us true justice as ambassador.”

“And you have told no one of Lord Ambrodel’s mission?” his mother inquired carefully.

“No” Sithas informed her. “Indeed, Quimant and I discussed the dwarves today, but I said nothing even to him about our quiet diplomat. Still, I wish you would tell me why we must maintain such secrecy.”

“Please, not yet,” Nirakina demurred.

A thin haze had gradually spread across the sky, and now the wind carried a bit of early winter in its caress. Sithas saw his mother shiver in her light silken garment.

“Come, we’ll return to the hall,” he said, offering his arm as she rose.

“And your brother?” Nirakina asked tentatively as they turned back toward the crystal doors. “Can you send him more troops?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sithas replied, the agony of the decision audible in his voice. “Can I risk arousing the city?”

“Perhaps you need more information.”

“Who could inform me of that which I don’t already know?” Sithas asked skeptically.

“Kith-Kanan himself.” His mother stopped to face him as the doors opened and the warmth of the tower beckoned. “Bring him home, Sithas,” she said urgently, taking both of his arms in her hands. “Bring him home and talk to him!”

Sithas was surprised at his own instinctive reaction. The suggestion made surprisingly good sense. It offered him hope – and an idea for action that would unite, not divide, his people. Yet how could he call his brother home now, out of the midst of a monstrous encircling army?

*

The next day Quimant again was Sithas’s first and primary visitor. “My lord,” began the adviser, “have you made a decision about conscription of additional forces? I am reluctant to remind you, but time may be running short.”

Sithas frowned. Unbidden, his mind recalled the scene at the riverbank when the first column departed for war. Now more than half those elves were dead.

What would be the city’s reaction should another, larger force march west?

“Not yet. I wish to wait until …” His voice trailed off. He had been about to mention Ambrodel’s mission. “I will not make that decision yet,” he concluded.

He was spared the necessity of further discussion when Stankathan, his palace majordomo, entered the great hall. That dignified elf, clad in a black waistcoat of wool, preceded a travel-stained messenger who wore the leather jerkin of a Wildrunner scout. The latter bore a scroll of parchment sealed with a familiar stamp of red wax.

“A message from my brother?” Sithas rose to his feet, recognizing the form of the sheet.

“By courier, who came from across the river just this morning,” replied Stankathan. “I brought him over to the tower directly.”

Sithas felt a surge of delight, as he did every fortnight or so when a courier arrived with the latest reports from Kith-Kanan. Yet that delight had lately been tempered by the grim news from his brother and the besieged garrison.

He looked at the courier as the elf approached and bowed deeply. Besides the dirt and mud of the trail, Sithas saw that the fellow had a sling supporting his right arm and a dark, stained bandage around the leggings of his left knee.

“My gratitude for your efforts,” said Sithas, appraising the rider. The elf stood taller after his words, as if the praise of the speaker was a balm to his wounds.

“What was the nature of your obstacles?”

“The usual rings of guards, Your Highness,” replied the elf. “But the humans lack sorcerers and so cannot screen the paths with magic. The first day of my journey I was concealed by invisibility, a spell that camouflaged myself and my horse. Afterward, the fleetness of my steed carried me, and I encountered only one minor fray.”

The Speaker of the Stars took the scroll and broke the wax seal. Carefully he unrolled the sheet, ignoring Quimant for the time being. The lord stood quietly; if he was annoyed, he made no visible sign of the fact.

Sithas read the missive solemnly.

I look out, my brother, upon an endless sea of humanity. Indeed, they surround us like the ocean surrounds an island, completely blocking our passage. It is only with great risk that my couriers can penetrate the lines – that, and the aid of spells cast by my enchanters, which allow them some brief time to escape the notice of the foe.

What is to be the fate now of our cause? Will the army of Ergoth attack and carry the fort? Their horses sweep in great circles about us, but the steeds cannot reach us here. The other two wings have joined General Giarna before Sithelbec, and their numbers truly stun the mind.

General Giarna, I have learned, is the name of the foe we faced in the spring, the one who drove us from the field. We have taken prisoners from his force, and to a man they speak of their devotion to him and their confidence that he will one day destroy us! I met him in the brief hours I was prisoner, and he is a terrifying man. There is something deep and cruel about him that transcended any foe I have ever encountered.

Will the dwarves of Thorbardin march from their stronghold and break the siege from the south? That, my brother, would be a truly magnificent feat of diplomacy on your part. Should you bring such an alliance into being, I could scarce convey my gratitude across the miles!

Or will the hosts of Silvanost march forth, the elves united in their campaign against the threat to our race? That, I am afraid, is the least likely of my musings – at least, from the words you give me as to our peoples’ apathy and lack of concern. How fares the diplomatic battle, Brother?

I hope to amuse you with one tale, an experience that gave us all many moments of distraction, not to mention fear. I have written to you of the gnomish lava cannon, the mountain vehicle pulled by a hundred oxen, its stony maw pointed skyward as it belches smoke and fire. Finally, shortly after my last letter, this device was hauled into place before Sithelbec. It stood some three miles away but loomed so high and spumed so furiously that we were indeed distraught!

For three days, the monstrous structure became the center of a whirlwind of gnomish activity. They scaled its sides, fed coal into its bowels, poured great quantities of muck and dust and streams of a red powder into its maw. All this time, the thing puffed and chugged. By the third day, the entire plain lay shrouded beneath a cloud from its wheezing exhalations.

Finally the gnomes clambered up the sides and stood atop the device, as if they had scaled a small mountain. We watched, admittedly with great trepidation, as one of the little creatures mixed a caldron at the very lip of the cannon’s interior. Eventually he cast the contents of the vessel into the weapon itself. All of the gnomes fled, and for the first time, we noticed that the humans had pulled back from the cannon, giving it a good half-mile berth to either side.

For a full day, the army of Ergoth huddled in fright, staring at their monstrous weapon. Finally it appeared that it had failed to discharge, but it was not until the following day that we watched the gnomes creep forward to investigate.

Suddenly the thing began to chug and wheeze and belch. The gnomes scurried for cover, and for another full day, we all watched and waited. But it was not until the morning of the third day that we saw the weapon in action.

It exploded shortly after dawn and cast its formidable ordnance for many miles. Fortunately we, as the targets of the attack, were safe. It was the gathered human army that suffered the brunt of flaming rock and devastating force that ripped across the plains.

We saw thousands of the humans’ horses (unfortunately a small fraction of their total number) stampede in panic across the plain. Whole regiments vanished beneath the deluge of death as a sludgelike wave spread through the army.

For a brief moment, I saw the opportunity to make a sharp attack, further disrupting the encircling host. Even as I ordered the attack, however, the ranks of General Giarna’s wing shouldered aside the other humans. His deadly riders ensured that our trap remained effectively closed.

Nevertheless, the accident wreaked havoc among the Army of Ergoth. We gave thanks to the gods that the device misfired; had its attack struck Sithelbec, you would have already received your last missive from me. The cannon has been reduced to a heap of rubble, and we pray daily that it cannot be rebuilt.

My best wishes and hopes for my new niece or nephew. Which is it to be?

Perhaps you will have the answer by the time you read this. I can only hope that somehow I will know. I hope Hermathya is comfortable and well.

I miss your counsel and presence as always, Brother. I treat myself to the thought that, could we but bring our minds together, we could work a way to break out of this stalemate. But, alas, the jaws of the trap close about me, and I know that you, in the capital, are ensnared in every bit as tight a position as I.

Until then, have a prayer for us! Give my love to Mother!

Kith

Sithas paused, realizing that the guards and Quimant had been studying him intently as he read. A full range of emotions had played across his face, he knew, and suddenly the knowledge made him feel exceedingly vulnerable.

“Leave me, all of you!” Sithas barked the command, more harshly perhaps than he intended, but he was nevertheless gratified to see them all quickly depart from the hall.

He paced back and forth before the emerald throne. His brother’s letter had agitated him more than usual, for he knew that he had to do something. No longer could he force the standoff at Sithelbec into the back of his mind. His mother and his brother were right. He needed to see Kith-Kanan, to talk with him. They would be able to work out a plan – a plan with some hope of success!

Remembering his walk with Nirakina, he turned toward the royal doors of crystal. The gardens and the stables lay beyond.

Resolutely Sithas stalked to those doors, which opened silently before him.

He emerged from the tower into the cool sunlight of the garden but took no note of his surroundings. Instead, he crossed directly to the royal stable.

The stable was in fact a sprawling collection of buildings and corrals. These included barns for the horses and small houses for the grooms and trainers, as well as stocks of feed. Behind the main structure, a field of short grass stretched away from the Tower of the Stars, covering the palace grounds to the edges of the guildhouses that bordered them.

Here were kept the several dozen horses of the royal family, as well as several coaches and carriages. But it was to none of these that the speaker now made his way.

Instead, he crossed through the main barn, nodding with easy familiarity to the grooms who brushed the sleek stallions. He passed through the far door and crossed a small corral, approaching a sturdy building that stood by itself, unattached to any other. The door was divided into top and bottom halves; the top half stood open.

A form moved within the structure, and then a great head emerged from the door. Bright golden eyes regarded Sithas with distrust and suspicion.

The front of that head was a long, wickedly hawklike beak. The beak opened slightly. Sithas saw the great wings flex within the confining stable and knew that Arcuballis longed to fly.

“You must go to Kith-Kanan,” Sithas told the powerful steed. “Bring him out of his fort and back to me. Do this, Arcuballis, when I let you fly!”

The griffon’s large eyes glittered as the creature studied the Speaker of the Stars. Arcuballis had been Kith-Kanan’s lifelong mount until the duties of generalship had forced his brother to take a more conventional steed. Sithas knew that the griffon would go and bring his brother back.

Slowly Sithas reached forward and unlatched the bottom half of the door, allowing the portal to swing freely open. Arcuballis hesitantly stepped forward over the half-eaten carcass of a deer that lay just inside the stable.

With a spreading of his great wings, Arcuballis gave a mighty spring. He bounded across the corral, and by his third leap, the griffon was airborne. His powerful wings drove downward and the creature gained height, soaring over the roof of the stable, then veering to pass near the Tower of the Stars.

“Go!” cried Sithas. “Go to Kith-Kanan!”

As if he heard, the griffon swept through a turn. Powerful wings still driving him upward, Arcuballis swerved toward the west.

It seemed to Sithas as if a heavy burden had flown away from him, borne upon the wings of the griffon. His brother would understand, he knew. When Arcuballis arrived at Sithelbec, as Sithas felt certain he would, Kith-Kanan would waste no time in mounting his faithful steed and hastening back to Silvanost. Between them, he knew, they would find a way to advance the elven cause.

“Excellency?”

Sithas whirled, startled from his reverie by a voice from behind him. He saw Stankathan, the majordomo, looking out of place among the mud and dung of the corral. The elf’s face, however, was knit by a deeper concern.

“What is it?” Sithas inquired quickly.

“It’s your wife, the Lady Hermathya,” replied Stankathan. “She cries with pain now. The clerics tell me it is time for your child to be born.”

Chapter 7

THREE DAYS LATER

The oil lamp sputtered in the center of the wooden table. The flame was set low to conserve precious fuel for the long, dark months of winter that lay ahead. Kith-Kanan thought the shadowy darkness appropriate for this bleak meeting.

With him at the table sat Kencathedrus and Parnigar. Both of them – as well as Kith, himself – showed the gauntness of six months at half rations. Their eyes carried the dull awareness that many more months of the same lay before them.

Every night during that time, Kith had met with these two officers, both of them trusted friends and seasoned veterans. They gathered in this small room, with its plain table and chairs. Sometimes they shared a bottle of wine, but that commodity, too, had to be rationed carefully.

“We have a report from the Wildrunners,” Parnigar began. “White-lock managed to slip through the lines. He told me that the small companies we have roaming the woods can hit hard and often. But they have to keep moving, and they don’t dare venture onto the plains.”

“Of course not!” Kencathedrus snapped.

The two officers argued, as they did so often, from their different tactical perspectives. “We’ll never make any progress if we keep dispersing our forces through the woods. We have to gather them together! We must mass our strength!”

Kith sighed and held up his hands. “We all know that our ‘mass of strength’ would be little more than a nuisance to the human army – at least right now.

The fortress is the only thing keeping the Wildrunners from annihilation, and the hit-and-run tactics are all we can do until … until something happens.”

He trailed off weakly, knowing he had touched upon the heart of their despair. True, for the time being they were safe enough in Sithelbec from direct attack. And they had food that could be stretched, with the help of their clerics, to last for a year, perhaps a little longer.

In sudden anger, Kencathedrus smashed his fist on the table. “They hold us here like caged beasts,” he growled. “What kind of fate do we consign ourselves to?”

“Calm yourself, my friend.” Kith touched his old teacher on the shoulder, seeing the tears in the elven warrior’s eyes. His eyes were framed by sunken skin, dark brown in color, that accentuated further the hollowness of the elf’s cheeks. By the gods, do we all look like that? Kith had to wonder.

The captain of Silvanost pushed himself to his feet and turned away from them. Parnigar cleared his throat awkwardly. “There is nothing we can accomplish by morning,” he said. Quietly he got to his feet.

Parnigar, alone of the three of them, had a wife here. He worried more about her health than his own. She was human, one of several hundred in the fort, but this was a fact that they carefully avoided in conversation. Though Kith-Kanan knew and liked the woman, Kencathedrus still found the interracial marriage deeply disturbing.

“May you rest well tonight, noble elves,” Parnigar offered before stepping through the door into the dark night beyond.

“I know your need to avenge the battle on the plains,” Kith-Kanan said to Kencathedrus as the latter turned and gathered his cloak. “I believe this, my friend – your chance will come!”

The elven captain looked at the general, so much younger than himself, and Kith could see that Kencathedrus wanted to believe him. His eyes were dry again, and finally the captain nodded gruffly. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he promised before following Parnigar into the night.

Kith sat for a while, staring at the dying flame of the lantern, reluctant to extinguish the light even though he knew precious fuel burned away with each second. Not enough fuel … not enough food … insufficient troops. What did he have enough of, besides problems?

He tried not to think about the extent of his frustration – how much he hated being trapped inside the fortress, cooped up with his entire army, at the mercy of the enemy beyond the walls. How he longed for the freedom of the forests, where he had lived so happily during his years away from Silvanost.

Yet with these thoughts, he couldn’t help thinking of Anaya – beautiful, lost Anaya. Perhaps his true entrapment had begun with her death, before the war started, before he had been made general of his father’s – and then his brother’s – army.

Finally he sighed, knowing that his thoughts could bring him no comfort.

Reluctantly he doused the lantern’s flame. His own bunk occupied the room adjacent to this office, and soon he lay there.

But sleep would not come. That night they had had no wine to share, and now the tension of his mood kept Kith-Kanan awake for seeming hours after his two officers left.

Eventually, with the entire fortress silent and still around him, his eyes fell shut – but not to the darkness of restful sleep. Instead, it was as though he fell directly from wakefulness into a very vivid dream.

He dreamed that he soared through the clouds, not upon the back of Arcuballis as he had flown so many times before, but supported by the strength of his own arms, his own feet. He swooped and dove like an eagle, master of the sky.

Abruptly the clouds parted before him, and he saw three conical mountain peaks jutting upward from the haze of earth so far below. These monstrous peaks belched smoke, and streaks of fire splashed and flowed down their sides.

The valleys extending from their feet were hellish wastelands of crimson lava and brown sludge.

Away from the peaks he soared, and now below him were lifeless valleys of a different sort. Surrounded by craggy ridges and needlelike peaks, these mountain retreats lay beneath great sheets of snow and ice. All around him stretched a pristine brilliance. Gray and black shapes, the forms of towering summits, rose from the vast glaciers of pure white. In places, streaks of blue showed through the snow, and here Kith-Kanan saw ice as clean, as clear as any on Krynn.

Movement suddenly caught his eye in one of these valleys. He saw a great mountain looming, higher than all the others around. Upon its face, dripping ice formed the crude outlines of a face like that of an old, white-bearded dwarf.

Kith continued his flight and saw movement again. At first Kith thought that he was witnessing a great flock of eagles – savage, prideful birds that crowded the sky. Then he wondered, could they be some kind of mountain horses or unusual, tawny-colored goats?

In another moment, he knew, as the memory of Arcuballis came flooding back. These were griffons, a whole flock of them! Hundreds of the savage half-eagle, half-lion creatures were surging through the air toward Kith-Kanan.

He felt no fear. Instead, he turned away from the dwarfbeard mountain and flew southward. The griffons followed, and slowly the heights of the range fell behind him. He saw lakes of blue water below him and fields of brush and mossy rock. Then came the first trees, and he dove to follow a mountain rivulet toward the green flatlands that now opened up before him.

And then he saw her in the forest – Anaya! She was painted like a wild savage, her naked body flashing among the trees as she ran from him. By the gods, she was fast! She outdistanced him even as he flew, and soon the only trace of her passage was the wild laughter that lingered on the breeze before him.

Then he found her, but already she had changed. She was old, and rooted in the ground. Before his eyes, she had become a tree, growing toward the heavens and losing all of the form and the senses of the elfin woman he had grown to love.

His tears flowed, unnoticed, down his face. They soaked the ground and nourished the tree, causing it to shoot farther into the sky. Sadly the elf left her, and he and his griffons flew on farther to the south.

Another face wafted before him. He recognized with shock the human woman who had given him his escape from the enemy camp. Why, now, did she enter his dream?

The rivulet below him became a stream, and then more streams joined it, and the stream became a river, flowing into the forested realm of his homeland.

Ahead he finally saw a ring of water where the River Thon-Thalas parted around the island of Silvanost. Behind him, five hundred griffons followed him homeward. A radiant glow reached out to welcome him.

He saw another elf woman in the garden. She looked upward, her arms spread, welcoming him to his home, to her. At first, from a distance, he wondered if this was his mother, but then as he dove closer, he recognized his brother’s wife, Hermathya.

Sunlight streamed into his window. He awoke suddenly, refreshed and revitalized. The memory of his dream shone in his mind like a beacon, and he sprang from his bed. The fortress still slumbered around him. His window, on the east wall of a tower, was the first place in Sithelbec to receive the morning sun. Throwing a cloak over his tunic and sticking his feet into soft, high leather boots, he laced the latter around his knees while he hobbled toward the door.

A cry of alarm suddenly sounded from the courtyard. In the next moment, a horn blared, followed by a chorus of trumpets blasting a warning. Kith dashed from his room, down the hall of the captain’s quarters and to the outside. The sun was barely cresting the fortress wall, and yet he saw a shadow pass across that small area of brightness.

He noted several archers on the wall, turning and aiming their weapons skyward.

“Don’t shoot!” he cried as the shadow swooped closer and he recognized it.

“Arcuballis!”

He waved his hand and ran into the courtyard as the proud griffon circled him once, then came to rest before him. The lion’s hindquarter’s squatted while the creature raised one foreclaw – the massive, taloned limb of an eagle. The keen yellow eyes blinked, and Kith-Kanan felt a surge of affection for his faithful steed.

In the next moment, he wondered about Arcuballis’s presence here. He had left him in charge of his brother back in Silvanost. Of course! Sithas had sent the creature here to Kith to bring him home! The prospect elated him like nothing else had in years.

*

It took Kith-Kanan less than an hour to leave orders with his two subordinates. Parnigar he placed in overall command, while Kencathedrus was to drill and train a small, mobile sortie force of cavalry, pikes, and archers. They would be called the Flying Brigade, but they were not to be employed until Kith-Kanan’s return. He cautioned both officers on the need to remain alert to any human stratagem. Sithelbec was the keystone to any defense on the plains, and it must remain impregnable, inviolate.

“I’m sure my brother has plans. We’ll meet and work out a way to break this stalemate!” The autumn wind swirled through the compound, bringing the first bite of winter.

He climbed onto the back of his steed, settling into the new saddle that one of the Wildrunner horsemen had cobbled for him.

“Good luck, and may the gods watch over your flight,” Kencathedrus said, clasping Kith’s gloved hand in both of his own.

“And bring a speedy return,” added Parnigar.

Arcuballis thrust powerful wings, muscular and stout enough to break a man’s neck, toward the ground. At the same time, the leonine hindquarters thrust the body into the air.

Several strokes of his wings carried Arcuballis to the top of a building, still inside the fortress wall. He grasped the peaked roof with his eagle foreclaws, then used his feline rear legs to spring himself still higher into the air. With a squawk that rang like a challenge across the plain, he soared over the wall, climbing steadily.

Kith-Kanan was momentarily awestruck at the spectacle of the enemy arrayed below him. His tower, the highest vantage point in Sithelbec, didn’t convey the immense sprawl of the army of Ergoth – not in the way that Arcuballis’s ascending flight did. Below, ranks of human archers took up their weapons, but the griffon already soared far out of range.

They flew onward, passing above a great herd of horses in a pasture. The shadow of the griffon passed along the ground, and several of the steeds snorted and reared in sudden panic. These bolted immediately, and in seconds, the herd had erupted into a stampede. The elf watched in wry amusement as the human herdsmen raced out of the path of the beasts. It would be hours, he suspected, before order was restored to the camp.

Kith looked down at the smoldering remains of the lava cannon, now a black, misshapen thing, like a burned and gnarled tree trunk leaning at a steep angle over the ground. He saw seemingly endless rows of tents, some of them grand but most simple shelters of oilskin or wool. Everywhere the flat ground had been churned to mud.

Finally he left the circular fortress and the larger circle of the human army behind. Forests of lush green opened before him, dotted by ponds and lakes, streaked by rivers and long meandering meadows. As the wild land surrounded him, he felt the agony of the war fall away.

*

Suzine des Quivalen studied the image in the mirror until it faded into the distance, beyond the reach of her arcane crystal. Yet even after it vanished, the memory of those powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan away – away from her – lingered in her mind. She saw his blond hair, flying from beneath his helmet. She recalled her gasp of terror when the archers had fired, and her slow relaxation as he gained height and safety. Yet a part of her had cursed and railed at him for leaving, and that part had wanted to see a human arrow bring him down. She didn’t want him dead, of course, but the idea of this handsome elf as a prisoner in her camp was strangely appealing.

For a moment, she paused, wondering at the fascination she found for this elven commander, mortal enemy of her people and chief opponent of the man who was her … lover.

Once General Giarna had been that and more. Smooth, dashing, and handsome, he had swept her off her feet in the early days of their relationship.

With the aid of her powers with the mirror, she had given him information sufficient to discredit several of the emperor’s highest generals. The grateful ruler had rewarded the Boy General with an ever increasing array of field commands.

But something had changed since those times. The man who she thought had loved her now treated her with cruelty and arrogance, inspiring in her fears that she could not overcome. Those fears were great enough to hold her at his side, for she had come to believe that flight from General Giarna would mean her sentence of death.

Here on the plains, in command of many thousands of men, Giarna had little time for her, which was a relief. But when she saw him, he seemed so coldly controlled, so monstrously purposeful, that she feared him all the more.

With an angry shake of her head, she turned from the mirror, which slowly faded into a reflection of the Lady Suzine and the interior of her tent. She rose in a swirl of silk and stalked across the rich carpets that blanketed the ground.

Her red hair swirled in a long coil around her scalp, rising higher than her head and peaking in a glittering tiara of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.

Her gown, of blood-red silk, clung to the full curves of her body as she stalked toward the tent flap that served as her door. She stopped long enough to throw a woolen shawl over her bare shoulders, remembering the chill that had settled over the plains in the last few days.

As soon as she emerged, the six men-at-arms standing at her door snapped to attention, bringing their halberds straight before their faces. She paid no attention as they fell in behind her, marching with crisp precision as she headed toward another elegant tent some distance away. The black stallion of General Giarna stood restlessly outside, so she knew that the man she sought was within.

The Army of Ergoth spread to the horizons around her. The massive encampment encircled the fortress of Sithelbec in a great ring. Here, at the eastern arc of that ring, the headquarters of the three generals and their retinues had collected. Amid the mud and smoke of the army camp, the gilded coaches of the noble lancers and the tall, silken folds of the high officers’ tents, stood out in contrast.

Before Suzine arose the tallest tent of all, that of General Barnet, the overall general of the army.

The two guards before that tent stepped quickly out of the way to let her pass, one of them pulling aside the tent flap to give her entrance. She passed into the semidarkness of the tent and her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light. She saw General Giarna lounging easily at a table loaded with food and drink. Before him, sitting stiffly, was General Barnet. Suzine couldn’t help but notice the fear and anger in the older general’s eyes as he looked at her.

Beyond the two seated men stood a third, General Xalthan. That veteran’s face was deathly, shockingly pale. He surprised Suzine by looking at her with an expression of pleading, as if he hoped that she could offer him succor for some terrible predicament.

“Come in, my dear,” said Giarna, his voice smooth, his manner light. “We are having a farewell toast to our friend, General Xalthan.”

“Farewell?” she asked, having heard nothing of that worthy soldier’s departure.

“By word of the emperor – by special courier, with an escort. Quite an honor, really,” added Giarna, his tone mocking and cruel.

Instantly Suzine understood. The disaster with the lava cannon had been the last straw, as far as the emperor was concerned, for General Xalthan. He had been recalled to Daltigoth under guard.

To his credit, the wing commander nodded stiffly, retaining his composure even in the face of Giarna’s taunts. General Barnet remained immobile, but the hatred in his eyes now flashed toward Giarna. Suzine, too, felt an unexpected sense of loathing toward the Boy General.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the doomed wing commander quietly. “I really am.”

Indeed, the depths of her sorrow surprised her. She had never thought very much about Xalthan, except sometimes to feel uncomfortable when his eyes ran over the outlines of her body if she wore a clinging gown.

But the old man was guilty of no failing, she suspected, except an inability to move as quickly as the Boy General. Xalthan stood in the path of Giarna’s desire to command the entire army. General Giarna’s reports to the emperor, she felt certain, had been full of the information she had provided him – news of Xalthan’s sluggish advance, the ineptness of the gnomish artillerymen, all details that could make a vengeful and impatient ruler lose his patience.

And cause an old warrior who deserved only a peaceful retirement to face instead a prospect of torture, disgrace, and execution.

The knowledge made Suzine feel somehow dirty.

Xalthan looked at her with that puppylike sense of hope, a hope she could do nothing to gratify. His fate was laid in stone before them: There would be a long ride to Daltigoth, perhaps with the formerly esteemed officer bound in chains. Once there, the emperor’s inquisitors would begin, often with Quivalen himself in attendance.

It was rumored that the emperor received great pleasure from watching the torture of those he felt had failed him. No tool was too devious, no tactic too inhumane, for these monstrous sculptors of pain. Fire and steel, venoms and acids, all were the instruments of their ungodly work. Finally, after days or weeks of indescribable agony, the inquisitors would be finished, and Xalthan would be healed – just enough to allow him to be alert for the occasion of his public execution.

The fact that her cousin was the one who would do this to the man didn’t enter into her considerations. She accepted, fatalistically, that this was the way things would happen. Her role in the court family was to be one who remained docile and sensitive to her duties, useful with her skills as seer. She had to play that role and leave the rest to fate.

Just for a moment, a nearly overwhelming urge possessed her, a desire to flee this army camp, to flee the gracious life of the capital, to fly from all the darkness that seemed to surround her empire’s endeavors. She wanted to go to a place where troubles such as this one remained concealed from delicate eyes.

It was only when she remembered the blond-haired elf who so fascinated her that she paused. Even though he had gone, flown from Sithelbec on the back of his winged steed, she felt certain he would return. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to be here when he did.

“Farewell, General,” she said quietly, crossing to embrace the once-proud warrior. Without another glance at Giarna, she turned and left the tent.

Suzine retreated to her own shelter, anger rising within her. She stalked back and forth within the silken walls, resisting the urge to throw things, to rant loudly at the air. For all her efforts at self-control, her vaunted discipline seemed to have deserted her. She could not calm herself.

Suddenly she gasped as the tent flap flew open and her general’s huge form blocked out the light. Instinctively she backed away as he marched into her shelter, allowing the flap to fall closed behind him.

“That was quite a display,” he growled, his voice like a blast of winter’s wind.

His dark eyes glowered, showing none of the amusement they had displayed at Xalthan’s predicament.

“What – what do you mean?” she stammered, still backing away. She held her hand to her mouth and stared at him, her green eyes wide. A trace of her red hair spilled across her brow, and she angrily pushed it away from her face.

Giarna crossed to her in three quick strides, taking her wrists in both his hands. He pulled her arms to her sides and stared into her face, his mouth twisted into a menacing sneer.

“Stop – you’re hurting me!” she objected, twisting powerlessly in his grip.

“Hear me well, wench.” He growled, his voice barely audible. “Do not attempt to mock me again – ever! If you do, that shall be the end your power … the end of everything!”

She gasped, frightened beyond words.

“I have chosen you for my woman. That fact pleased you once; perhaps it may please you again. Whether it does or not is irrelevant to me. Your skills, however, are of use to me. The others wonder at the great intelligence I gain concerning the elven army, and so you will continue to serve me thus.

“But you will not affront me again!” General Giarna paused, and his dark eyes seemed to mock Suzine’s terrified stare.

“Do I make myself perfectly clear?” Giarna demanded, and she nodded quickly, helplessly. She feared his power and his strength, and she could only tremble in the grip of his powerful hands.

“Remember well,” added the general. He fixed her with a penetrating gaze, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stalked imperiously from the tent.

*

The flight to Silvanost took four days, for Kith allowed Arcuballis to hunt in the forest, while he himself took the time to rest at night on a lush bed of pine boughs amid the noisy, friendly chatter of the woods. On the second day of his flight, Kith-Kanan stopped early, for he had reached a place that he intended to visit. Arcuballis dove to earth in the center of a blossom-bright clearing, and Kith dismounted. He walked over to a tree that grew strong and proud, shading a wide area, far wider than when he had last been here a year before.

“Anaya, I miss you,” he said quietly.

He rested at the foot of the tree and spent several hours in bittersweet reflection of the elf woman he’d loved and lost. But he didn’t find total despair in the memory, for this was indeed Anaya beside him now. She grew tall and flourished in a part of the woods she had always loved.

She had been a creature of the woods, and together with her “brother”

Mackeli, the forest’s guardian as well. For a moment, the pain threatened to block out the happier memories. Why did they die? For what purpose? Anaya killed by marauders. Mackeli slain by assassins – sent, Kith suspected, by someone in Silvanost itself.

Anaya hadn’t really died, he reminded himself. Instead, she had undergone a bizarre transformation and become a tree, rooted firmly in the forest soil she loved and had strived to protect.

Then a disturbing vision intruded itself into Kith’s reminiscences, and the picture of Anaya, laughing and bright before him, changed slightly. A beautiful elven woman still teased him, but now the face was different, no longer Anaya’s.

Hermathya! The image of his first love, now his brother’s wife, struck him like a physical blow. Angrily he shook his head, trying to dispel her features, to call back those of Anaya. Yet Hermathya remained before him, her eyes bold and challenging, her smile alluring.

Kith-Kanan exhaled sharply, surprised by the attraction he still felt for the Silvanesti woman. He had thought that impulse long dead, an immature passion that had run its course and been banished to the past. Now he imagined her supple body, her clinging, low-cut gown tailored to show enough to excite while concealing enough to mystify. He found himself vaguely ashamed to realize that he still desired her.

As he shook his head in an effort to banish the disturbing emotion, a picture of still a third woman insinuated itself. He recalled again the red-haired human woman who had given him his chance to escape from the enemy camp. There had been something vibrant and compelling about her, and this wasn’t the first time he had remembered her face.

The conflicting memories warred within him as he built a small fire and ate a simple meal. He camped in the clearing, as usual making himself a soft bed.

The night passed in peace.

He took to the air at first light, feeling as if he had somehow sullied Anaya’s memory, but soon the clean air swept through his hair, and his mind focused on the day’s journey. Arcuballis carried him swiftly and uneventfully eastward.

After his third night of sleeping in the woods, he felt as if his strength had been doubled, his wit and alertness greatly enhanced.

His spirits soared as high as the Tower of the Stars, which now appeared on the distant horizon. Arcuballis carried him steadily, but so far was the tower that more than an hour passed before they reached the Thon-Thalas River, border to the island of Silvanost.

His arrival was anticipated; boatmen on the river waved and cheered as he flew overhead, while a crowd of elves hurried toward the Palace of Quinari. The doors at the foot of the tower burst open, and Kith saw a blond-haired elf, clad in the silk robe of the Speaker of the Stars, emerge. Sithas hurried across the garden, but the griffon met him halfway.

Grinning foolishly, Kith leapt from the back of his steed to embrace his brother. It felt very good to be home.

Part II

SCIONS OF SILVANOS

Chapter 8

MIDAUTUMN,

(2214 PC)

“By Quenesti Pah, he’s beautiful!” Kith-Kanan cautiously took the infant in his arms. Proudly Sithas stood beside them. Kith had been on the ground for all of five minutes before the Speaker of the Stars had hurried him to the nursery to see the newest heir to the throne of Silvanesti.

“It takes a while before you feel certain that you won’t break him,” he told his brother, based on his own extensive paternal experience, a good two months’ worth now.

“Vanesti – it’s a good name. Proud, full of our heritage,” Kith said. “A name worthy of the heir of the House of Silvanos.”

Sithas looked at his brother and his son, and he felt better than he had in months. Indeed, he knew a gladness that hadn’t been his since the start of the war.

The door to the nursery opened and Hermathya entered. She approached Kith-Kanan nervously, her eyes upon her child. At first, the elven general thought that his sister-in-law’s tension resulted from the memory of them together. Kith and Hermathya’s affair, before her engagement to Sithas, had been brief but passionate.

But then he realized that her anxiety came from a simpler, more direct source. She was concerned that someone other than herself held her child.

“Here,” said Kith, offering the silk-swathed infant to Hermathya. “You have a very handsome son.”

“Thank you.” She took the child, then smiled hesitantly. Kith tried to see her in a different light than he did in his memories. He told himself that she looked nothing like the woman he had known, had thought he loved, those few years earlier.

Then the memories came back in a physical rush that almost brought him to his knees. Hermathya smiled again, and Kith-Kanan ached with desire. He lowered his eyes, certain that his bold feelings showed plainly on his face. By the gods, she was his brother’s wife! What kind of distorted loyalty tortured him that he could think these thoughts, feel these needs.

He cast a quick, apprehensive glance at Sithas and saw that his brother looked only at the baby. Hermathya, however, caught his eye, her own gaze sparking like fire. What was happening? Suddenly Kith-Kanan felt very frightened and very lonely.

“You should both be very happy,” he said awkwardly.

They said nothing, but each looked at Vanesti in a way that communicated their love and pride.

“Now let’s take care of business,” said Sithas to his brother. “The war.”

Kith sighed. “I knew we’d have to get around to the war sooner or later, but can we make it a little bit later? I’d like to see Mother first.”

“Of course. How stupid of me,” Sithas agreed. If he had noticed any of the feelings that Kith had thought showed so plainly on his face, the Speaker gave no sign. His voice dropped slightly. “She’s in her quarters. Shell be delighted to see you. I think it’s just what she needs.”

Kith-Kanan looked at his brother curiously, but Sithas did not elaborate.

Instead, the Speaker continued in a different vein.

“I’ve had some Thalian blond wine chilled in my apartment. I want to hear everything that’s happened since the start of the war. Come and find me after you’ve spoken to Nirakina.”

“I will. I’ve got a lot to tell, but I want to know how things have fared in the city as well.” Kith-Kanan followed Sithas from the nursery, quietly closing the door. Before it shut, he looked back and saw Hermathya cuddling the baby to her breast. The elf woman’s eyes looked up suddenly and locked upon Kith’s, making an electric connection that he had to force himself to break.

The two elves, leaders of the nation, walked in silence through the long halls of the Palace of Quinari. They reached the apartments of their mother, and Kith stopped as Sithas walked silently on.

“Enter” came her familiar voice in response to his soft knock.

He pushed open the door and saw Nirakina seated in a chair by the open window. She rose and swept him into her arms, hugging him as if she would never let him go.

He was shocked by the aging apparent in his mother’s face, an aging that was all the more distressing because of the long elven life span. By rights, she was just reaching middle age and could look forward to several productive centuries before she approached old age.

Yet her face, drawn by cares, and the gray streaks that had begun to silver her hair reminded Kith of his grandmother, in the years shortly before her death. It was a revelation that disturbed him deeply.

“Sit down, Mother,” Kith said quietly, leading her back to her chair. “Are you all right?”

Nirakina looked at him, and the son had trouble facing his mother’s eyes. So much despair!

“Seeing you does much to bring my strength back,” she replied, offering a wan smile. “It seems I’m surrounded by strangers so much now.”

“Surely Sithas is here with you.”

“Oh, when he can be, but there is much to occupy him. The affairs of war, and now his child. Vanesti is a beautiful baby, don’t you agree?”

Kith nodded, wondering why he didn’t hear more pleasure in his mother’s voice. This was her first grandchild.

“But Hermathya thinks that I get in the way, and her sisters are here to help.

I have seen too little of Vanesti.” Nirakina’s eyes drifted to the window. “I miss your father. I miss him so much sometimes that I can hardly stand it.”

Kith struggled for words. Failing, he took his mother’s hands in his own.

“The palace, the city – it’s all changing,” she continued. “It’s the war. In your absence, Lord Quimant advises your brother. It seems the palace is becoming home to all of Clan Oakleaf.”

Kith had heard of Quimant in Sithas’s letters and knew his brother considered him to be a great assistance in affairs of state.

“What of Tamanier Ambrodel?” The loyal elf had been his mother’s able aide and had saved her life during the riots that rocked the city before the outbreak of war. Sithel had promoted him to lord chamberlain to reward his loyalty. His mother and Tamanier had been good friends for many years.

“He’s gone. Sithas tells me not to worry, and I know he has embarked upon a mission in the service of the throne. But he has been absent a long time, and I cannot help but miss him.”

She looked at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “Sometimes I feel like so much excess baggage, locked away in my room here, waiting for my life to pass!”

Kith sat back, shocked and dismayed by his mother’s despair. This was so unlike the Nirakina he had always known, an elf woman full of vigor, serene and patient against the background of his father’s rigid ideas. He tried to hide his churning emotions beneath a lighthearted tone.

“Tomorrow we’ll go riding,” he said, realizing that sunset approached quickly.

“I have to meet Sithas tonight to make my reports. But meet me for breakfast in the dining hall, won’t you?”

Nirakina smiled, for the first time with her eyes as well as well as with her lips. “I’d like that,” she said. But the memory of her lined, unhappy face stuck with him as he left her chambers and made his way to his brother’s library.

“Come in,” announced Sithas, as two liveried halberdiers of the House Protectorate snapped to attention before the silver-plated doors to the royal apartment. One of them pulled the door open, and the general entered.

“We wish to be alone,” announced the Speaker of the Stars, and the guards nodded silently.

The pair settled into comfortable chairs, near the balcony that gave them an excellent view of the Tower of the Stars, which rose into the night sky across the gardens. The red moon, Lunitari, and the pale orb of Solinari illuminated the vista, casting shadows through the winding passages of the garden paths.

Sithas filled two mugs and placed the bottle of fine wine back into its bucket of melting ice. Handing one mug to his brother, he raised his own and met Kith’s with a slight clink.

“To victory,” he offered.

“Victory!” Kith-Kanan repeated.

They sat and, sensing that his brother wanted to speak first, the army commander waited expectantly. His intuition was correct.

“By all the gods, I wish I could be there with you!” Sithas began, his tone full of conviction.

Kith didn’t doubt him. “War’s not what I thought it would be,” he admitted.

“Mostly it’s waiting, discomfort, and tedium. We are always hungry and cold, but mostly bored. It seems that days and weeks go by when nothing happens of consequence.”

He sighed and paused for a moment to take a deep draft of his wine. The sweet liquid soothed his throat and loosened his tongue. “Then, when things do start to happen, you’re more frightened than you ever thought was possible.

You fight for your life; you run when you have to. You try to stay in touch with what’s going on, but it’s impossible. Just as quickly, the fight’s over and you go back to being bored. Except now you have the grief, too, knowing that brave companions have died this day, some of them because you made the wrong decision. Even the right decision sometimes sends too many good elves to their deaths.”

Sithas shook his head sadly. “At least you have some control over events. I sit here, hundreds of miles away. I sent those good elves to live or die without the slightest knowledge of what will befall them.”

“That knowledge is slim comfort,” replied his brother.

Kith-Kanan told his brother, in elaborate detail, about the battles in which the Wildrunners had fought the Army of Ergoth. He talked of their initial small victories, of the plodding advance of the central and southern wings. He described the fast-moving horsemen of the north wing and their keen and brutal commander, General Giarna. His voice broke as he related the tale of the trap that had ensnared Kencathedrus and his proud regiment, and for a moment, he lapsed into a miserable silence.

Sithas reached out and touched his brother on the shoulder. The gesture seemed to renew Kith-Kanan’s strength, and after drawing a deep breath, he began to speak again.

He told of their forced retreat into the fortress, of the numberless horde of humans surrounding them, barring the Wildrunners against any real penetration. The wine bottle emptied – it may as well have been by evaporation, for all the notice the brothers took – and the moons crept toward the western horizon. Sithas rang for another bottle of Thalian blond as Kith described the state of supplies and morale within Sithelbec and talked about their prospects for the future.

“We can hold out through the winter, perhaps well into next year. But we cannot shake the grip around us, not unless something happens to break this stalemate!”

“Something such as what? More reinforcements – another five thousand elves from Silvanost?” Sithas leaned close to his brother, disturbed by the account of the war. The setbacks suffered by the Wildrunners were temporary – this the speaker truly believed – and together they had to figure out some way to turn the tide.

Kith shook his head. “That would help – any reinforcements you can send would help – but even twice that many elves would not turn the tide. Perhaps the Army of Thorbardin, if the dwarves can be coaxed from their mountain retreat …” His voice showed that he placed little hope in this possibility.

“It might happen,” Sithas replied. “You didn’t get to know Lord Dunbarth as did I, when he spent a year among us in the city. He is a trustworthy fellow, and he bears no love for the humans. I think he realizes that his own kingdom will be next in line for conquest unless he can do something now.”

Sithas described the present ambassador, the intransigent Than-Kar, in considerably less glowing terms. “He’s a major stumbling block to any firm agreement, but there still might be some way around him.”

“I’d like to talk to him myself,” Kith said. “Can we bring him to the palace?”

“I can try,” Sithas agreed, realizing how weak the phrase sounded. Father would have ordered it, he reminded himself. For a moment, he felt terribly ineffective, wishing he had Sithel’s steady nerves. Angrily he pushed the sensation of doubt away and listened to his brother speak.

“I’ll believe in dwarven help when I see their banners on the field and their weapons pointed away from us!”

“But what else?” pressed Sithas. “What other tactics do we have?”

“I wish I knew,” his brother replied. “I hoped that you might have some suggestions.”

“Weapons?” Sithas explained the key role Lord Quimant was playing to increase the munitions production at the Oakleaf Clan’s forges. “We’ll get you the best blades that elven craftsmen can make.”

“That’s something – but still, we need more. We need something that cannot just stand against the human cavalry but break it – drive it away!”

The second bottle of wine began to vanish as the elven lords wrestled with their problem. The first traces of dawn colored the sky, a thin line of pale blue on the horizon, but no ready solution came to mind.

“You know, I wasn’t certain that Arcuballis could find you,” Sithas said after a pause of several minutes. The frustration of their search for a solution weighed upon them, and Kith welcomed the change of conversation.

“He never looked so good to me,” Kith-Kanan replied, “as when he came soaring into the fortress compound. I didn’t realize how much I missed this place – how much I missed you and mother – until I saw him.”

“He’s been there in the stable since you left,” Sithas said, shaking his head with a wry grin. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of sending him to you shortly after you first became besieged.”

“I had a curious dream about him – about an entire flock of griffons, actually – on the very night before he arrived. It was most uncanny.” Kith described his strange dream, and the two brothers pondered its meaning.

“A flock of griffons?” Sithas asked intently.

“Well, yes. Do you think it significant?”

“If we had a flock of griffons … if they all carried riders into combat … could that be the hammer needed to crack the shell around Sithelbec?” Sithas spoke with growing enthusiasm.

“Wait a minute,” said Kith, holding up his hand. “I suppose you’re right, in a hypothetical sense. In fact, the horses of the humans were spooked as I flew over, even though I was high, out of bowshot range. But who ever heard of an army of griffons?”

Sithas settled back, suddenly realizing the futility of his idea. For a moment, neither of them said anything – which was how they heard the soft rustling in the room behind them.

Kith-Kanan sprang to his feet, instinctively reaching for a sword at his hip, forgetting that his weapon hung back on the wall of his own apartment. Sithas whirled in his seat, staring in astonishment, and then he rose to his feet.

“You!” the Speaker barked, his voice taut with rage. “What are you doing here?”

Kith-Kanan crouched, preparing to spring at the intruder. He saw the figure, a mature elf cloaked in a silky gray robe, move forward from the shadows.

“Wait.” said Sithas, much to his brother’s surprise. The speaker held up his hand and Kith straightened, still tense and suspicious.

“One day your impudence will cost you,” Sithas said levelly as the elf approached them. “You are not to enter my chambers unannounced again. Is that clear?”

“Pardon my intrusion. As you know, my presence must remain discreet.”

“Who is this?” Kith-Kanan demanded.

“Forgive me,” said the gray-cloaked elf before Sithas cut him off.

“This is Vedvedsica,” said Sithas. Kith-Kanan noted that his brother’s tone had become carefully guarded. “He has … been helpful to the House of Silvanos in the past.”

“The pleasure is mine, and it is indeed great, honored prince,” offered Vedvedsica, with a deep bow to Kith-Kanan.

“Who are you? Why do you come here?” Kith demanded.

“In good time, lord – in good time. As to who I am, I am a cleric, a devoted follower of Gilean.”

Kith-Kanan wasn’t surprised. The god was the most purely neutral in the elven pantheon, most often used to justify self-aggrandizement and profit.

Something about Vedvedsica struck him as very self-serving indeed.

“More to the point, I know of your dream.”

The last was directed to Kith-Kanan and struck him like a lightning bolt between the eyes. For a moment, he hesitated, fighting an almost undeniable urge to hurl himself at the insolent cleric and kill him with his bare hands.

Never before had he felt so violated.

“Explain yourself!”

“I have knowledge that the two of you may desire – knowledge of griffons, hundreds of them. And even more important, I may have knowledge as to how they can be found and tamed.”

For the moment, the elven lords remained silent, listening suspiciously as Vedvedsica moved forward. “May 1?” inquired the cleric, gesturing to a seat beside their own.

Sithas nodded silently, and all three sat.

“The griffons dwell in the Khalkist Mountains, south of the Lords of Doom.”

The brothers knew of these peaks – three violent volcanoes in the heart of the forbidding range, high among vast glaciers and sheer summits. It was a region beyond the ken of elven explorers.

“How do you know this?” asked Sithas.

“Did your father ever tell you how he came to possess Arcuballis?” Again the cleric fixed Kith-Kanan with his gaze, then continued as if he already knew the answer. “He got him from me!”

Kith nodded, reluctant to believe the cleric but finding himself unable to doubt the veracity of his words.

“I purchased him from a Kagonesti, a wild elf who told me of the whereabouts of the pack. He encountered them, together with a dozen companions. He alone escaped the wrath of the griffons, with one young cub – the one given by me to Sithel as a gift, and the one that he passed along to his son. To you, Kith-Kanan.”

“But how could the flock be tamed? From what you say, a dozen elves perished to bring one tiny cub away!” Kith-Kanan challenged Vedvedsica.

Despite his suspicions, he felt his own excitement begin to build.

“I tamed him, with the aid and protection of Gilean. I developed the spell that broke him to halter. It’s a simple enchantment, really. Any elf with a working knowledge of the Old Script could have cast it. But only I could bring it into being!”

“Continue,” said Sithas urgently.

“I believe that spell can be enhanced, developed so that many more of the creatures could be brought to heel. I can inscribe it onto a scroll. Then one of you can take it in search of the griffons.”

“Are you certain that it will work?” demanded Sithas.

“No,” replied the cleric frankly. “It will need to be presented under precise circumstances and with a great force of command. That is why the person who casts the spell must be a leader among elves – one of you two. No others of our race would have the necessary traits.”

“How long would it take to prepare such a scroll?” pressed Kith. A cavalry company mounted on griffons, flying over the battlefield! The thought made his heart pound with excitement. They would be unstoppable!

Vedvedsica shrugged. “A week, perhaps two. It will be an arduous process.”

“I’ll go,” Kith volunteered.

“Wait!” said Sithas sharply. “I should go! And I will!”

Kith-Kanan looked at the Speaker in astonishment. “That’s crazy!” he argued.

“You’re the Speaker of the Stars. You have a wife, a child! More to the point, you’re the leader of all Silvanesti! And you haven’t ever lived in the wilderness before like I have! I can’t allow you to take the risk.”

For a moment, the twins stared at each other, equally stubborn. The cleric was forgotten for the moment, and he melted into the shadows, discreet in his withdrawal.

It was Sithas who spoke.

“Do you read the Old Script?” he asked his brother bluntly. “Well enough to be certain of your words, when you know that the whole future of the realm could depend upon what you say?”

The younger twin sighed. “No. My studies always emphasized the outdoor skills. I’m afraid the ancient writing wouldn’t make much sense to me.”

Sithas smiled wryly. “I used to resent that. You were always out riding horses or hunting or learning swordsmanship, while I studied the musty tomes and forgotten histories. Well, now I’m going to put that learning to use.

“We’ll both go,” Sithas concluded.

Kith-Kanan stared at him, realizing the outcry such a plan would raise. Perhaps, he had to admit, this was the reason the scheme appealed to him. Slowly, Kith relaxed, settling back into his chair.

“The trip won’t be easy,” Kith warned sternly. “We’re going to have to explore the largest mountain range on Ansalon, and winter isn’t far away. In those heights, you can be sure there’s already plenty of snow.”

“You can’t scare me off,” answered Sithas purposefully. “I know that Arcuballis can carry the two of us, and I don’t care if it takes all winter. We’ll find them, Kith. I know we will.”

“You know,” Kith-Kanan said ironically, “I must still be dreaming. In any event, you’re right. The sons of Sithel ought to make this quest together.”

With a final mug of wine, as the sky grew pale above them, they began to make their plans.

Chapter 9

NEXT MORNING

Kith-Kanan and his mother rode through the tree-lined streets of Silvanost for several hours, talking only of fond memories and pleasant topics from many years before. They stopped to enjoy the fountains, to watch the hawks dive for fish in the river, and to listen to the songbirds that clustered in the many flowered bushes of the city’s lush gardens.

During the ride, it seemed to the elven warrior that his mother slowly came to life again, even to the point of laughing as they watched the pompous dance of a brilliant cardinal trying to impress his mate.

In the back of Kith’s mind lurked the realization that his mother would soon learn of her sons’ plans to embark on a dangerous expedition into the Khalkist Mountains. That news could wait, he decided.

“Are you going to join your brother at court?” asked Nirakina as the sun slid past the midafternoon point.

Kith sighed. “There’ll be enough time for that tomorrow,” he decided.

“Good.” His mother looked at him, and he was delighted to see that the familiar sparkle had returned to her eyes. She spurred her horse with a sharp kick, and the mare raced ahead, leaving Kith with the challenge of her laugh as he tried to urge his older gelding into catching up.

They cantered beneath the shade of towering elms and dashed among the crystal columns of the elven homes in a friendly race toward the Gardens of Astarin and the royal stables. Nirakina was a good rider, with the faster horse; though Kith tried to spur the last energy from his own steed, his mother beat him through the palace gates by a good three lengths.

Laughing, they pulled up before the stables and dismounted. Nirakina turned toward him, impulsively pulling him into a hug, “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Thank you for coming home!”

Kith held her in silence for some moments, relieved that he hadn’t discussed the twins’ plans with her.

Leaving his mother at her chambers, he made his way to his own apartments, intending to bathe and dress for the banquet his brother had scheduled for that evening. Before he reached his door, however, a figure moved out of a nearby alcove.

Reflexively the elven warrior reached for a sword, a weapon that he did not usually carry in the secure confines of the palace. At the same time, he relaxed, recognizing the figure and realizing that there was no threat – at least, no threat of harm.

“Hermathya,” he said, his voice oddly husky.

“Your nerves are stretched tight,” she observed, with an awkward little laugh.

She wore a turquoise gown cut low over her breasts. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders, and as she looked up at him, Kith-Kanan thought that she seemed as young and vulnerable as ever.

He forced himself to shake his head, remembering that she was neither young nor vulnerable. Still, the spell of her innocent allure held him, and he wanted to reach out and sweep her into his arms.

With difficulty, he held his hands at his sides, waiting for Hermathya to speak again. His stillness seemed to unsettle her, as if she had expected him to make the next move.

The look in her eyes left him little doubt as to what response she was hoping for. He didn’t open the door, he didn’t move toward his room. He remained all too conscious of the private chambers and the large bed nearby. The aching in his body surprised him, and he realized with a great deal of dismay that he wanted her. He wanted her very badly indeed.

“I – I wanted to talk to you,” she said. He understood implicitly that she was lying.

Her words seemed to break the spell, and he reached past her to push open his door. “Come in,” he said as flatly as possible.

He walked to the tall crystal doors, pulling the draperies aside to reveal the lush brilliance of the Gardens of Astarin. Keeping his back to her, he waited for her to speak.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she began. “They told me you had been captured, and I feared I would go out of my mind! Were they cruel to you? Did they hurt you?”

Not half so cruel as you were once, he thought silently. Half of him wanted to shout at her, to remind her that he had once begged her to run away with him, to choose him over his brother. The other half wanted to sweep her into his arms, into his bed, into his life. Yet he dared not look at her, for he feared the latter emotion and knew it was the worst treachery.

“I was only held prisoner for a day,” he said, his voice hardening. “They butchered the other elves that they held, but I was fortunate enough to escape.”

He thought of the human woman who had – unwittingly, so far as he knew – aided his flight. She had been very beautiful, for a human. Her body possessed a fullness that was voluptuous, that he had to admit he found strangely attractive. Yet she was nothing to him. He didn’t even know her name. She was far away from him, probably forever. While Hermathya …

Kith-Kanan sensed her moving closer. Her hand touched his shoulder and he stood very still.

“You’d better go. I’ve got to get ready for the banquet.” Still he did not look at her.

For a second, she was silent, and he felt very conscious of her delicate touch. Then her hand fell away. “I …” She didn’t complete the thought.

As he heard her move toward the door, he turned from the windows to watch her. She smiled awkwardly before she left, pulling the door closed behind her.

For a long time afterward, he remained motionless. The image of her body remained burning in his mind. It frightened him terribly that he found himself wishing she had chosen to remain.

*

Kith-Kanan’s reentry into the royal court of Silvanost felt to him like a sudden immersion into icy water. Nothing in his recent experience bore any resemblance to the gleaming marble-floored hall, and the elegant nobles and ladies dressed in their silken robes, which were trimmed in fur and silver thread and embellished with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.

The discussions with his family, even the banquet of the previous night, had not prepared him for the full formality of the Hall of Audience. Now he found himself speaking to a faceless congregation of stiff coats and noble gowns, describing the course of the war to date. Finally his report was done, and the elves dissolved smoothly into private discussions.

“Who’s that?” Kith-Kanan asked Sithas, indicating a tall elf who had just arrived and now made his way to the throne.

“I’ll introduce you.” Sithas rose and gestured the elf forward. “This is Lord Quimant of Oakleaf, of whom I have spoken. This is my brother, Kith-Kanan, general of the elven army.”

“I am indeed honored, My lord,” said Quimant, with a deep bow.

“Thank you,” Kith replied, studying his face. “My brother tells me that your aid has been invaluable in supporting the war effort.”

“The Speaker is generous,” the lord said to Kith-Kanan modestly. “My contribution pales in comparison to the sacrifices made by you and all of your warriors. If we can but provide you with reliable blades, that is my only wish.”

For a moment, Kith was struck by the jarring impression that Lord Quimant, in fact, wished for a great deal more out of the war. That moment passed, and Kith noticed that his brother seemed to place tremendous confidence and warmth in Hermathya’s cousin.

“What word from our esteemed ambassador?” asked Sithas.

“Than-Kar will attend our court, but not until after the noon hour,” reported the lord. “He seems to feel that he has no pressing business here.”

“That’s the problem!” snapped the Speaker harshly.

Quimant changed the topic. To Sithas and Kith-Kanan, he described some additional expansions of the Clan Oakleaf mines, though the general paid little attention. Restlessly his eyes roamed the crowd, seeking Hermathya. He felt a vague relief that she was not present. He had felt likewise when she didn’t attend the previous night’s banquet, pleading a mild illness.

The evening passed with excruciating slowness. Kith-Kanan stood tersely as he was plied with invitations to banquets and hunting trips. Some of the ladies gave him other types of invitations, judging from the suggestive tilts of their smiles or the coy lowerings of demure eyelashes. He felt like a prize stag whose antlers were coveted for everybody’s mantel.

Kith found himself, much to his astonishment, actually looking back with fondness on the grim, battle-weary conversations he had most nights with his fellow warriors. They might have squatted around a smoky fire for illumination, caked with mud and smelling of weeks of accumulated grime, yet somehow that all seemed so much more real than did this pompous display.

Finally the fanfare of trumpets announced the arrival of the dwarven ambassador and his retinue. Kith-Kanan stared in surprise as Than-Kar led a column of more than thirty armed and armored dwarves into the hall. They marched in a muddy file toward the throne, finally halting to allow their leader to swagger forward on his own.

The Theiwar dwarf bore little resemblance to the jovial Dunbarth Ironthumb, of the Hylar Clan, whom Kith-Kanan had met years before. He found Than-Kar’s wide eyes, with their surrounding whites and tiny, beadlike pupils, disturbing – like the eyes of a madman, he thought. The dwarf was filthy and unkempt, with a soiled tunic and muddy boots, almost as if he had made a point of his messy appearance for the benefit of the elven general.

“The Speaker has demanded my presence, and I have come,” announced the dwarf in a tone ripe with insolence.

Kith-Kanan felt an urge to leap from the Speaker’s platform and throttle the obscene creature. With an effort, he held his temper in check.

“My brother has returned from the front,” began Sithas, dispensing with the formality of an introduction. “I desire for you to report to him on the status of your nation’s involvement.”

Than-Kar’s weird eyes appraised Kith-Kanan, while a smirk played on the dwarf’s lips. “No change.” He said bluntly. “My king needs to see some concrete evidence of elven trustworthiness before he will commit dwarven lives to this … cause.”

Kith felt his face flush, and he took a step forward. “Surely you understand that all the elder races are threatened by this human aggression?” he demanded.

The Theiwar shrugged. “The humans would say that they are threatened by elven aggression.”

“They are the ones who have marched into elven lands! Lands, I might add, that border firmly against the northern flank of your own kingdom!”

“I don’t see it that way,” snorted the dwarf. “And besides, you have humans among your own ranks! It almost seems to me that it is a family feud. If they see fit to join, why should dwarves get involved?”

Sithas turned in astonishment to Kith-Kanan, though the speaker remained outwardly composed.

“We have no humans fighting on the side of our forces. There are some – women and children, mostly – who have taken shelter in the fortress for the siege. They are merely innocent victims of the war. They do not change its character!”

“More to the point, then,” spoke the ambassador, his voice an accusing hiss, “explain the presence of elves in the Army of Ergoth!”

“Lies!” shouted Sithas, forgetting himself and springing to his feet. The hall erupted in shouts of anger and denial from courtiers and nobles pressing forward. Than-Kar’s bodyguards bristled and raised their weapons.

“Entire ranks of elves,” continued the dwarf as the crowd murmured. “They resist your imperial hegemony.”

“They are traitors to the homeland!” snapped Sithas.

“A question of semantics,” argued Than-Kar. “I merely mean to illustrate that the confused state of the conflict makes a dwarven intervention seem rash to the point of foolishness.”

Kith-Kanan could hold himself in check no longer. He stepped down from the platform and stared at the dwarf, who was a foot or more shorter than himself.

“You distort the truth in a way that can only discredit your nation!”

He continued, his voice a growl. “Any elves among the ranks of Ergoth are lone rogues, lured by human coin or promises of power. Even the likes of you cannot blur the clear lines of this conflict. You spout your lies and your distortions from the safety of this far city; hiding like a coward behind the robes of diplomacy. You make me sick!”

Than-Kar appeared unruffled as he stepped aside to address Sithas. “This example of your general’s impetuous behavior will be duly reported to my king.

It cannot further your cause.”

“You set a new standard for diplomatic excess, and you try my patience to its limits. Leave, now!” Sithas hissed the words with thick anger, and the hall fell deathly silent.

If the dwarf was affected by the speaker’s rage, however, he concealed his emotions well. With calculated insolence, he marched his column about and then led them from the Hall of Audience.

“Throw open the windows!” barked the Speaker of the Stars. “Clear the stench from the air!”

Kith-Kanan slumped to sit on the steps of the royal dais, ignoring the surprised looks from some of the stiff-backed elven nobles. “I could have strangled him with pleasure,” he snarled as his brother came to sit beside him.

“The audience is over,” Sithas announced to the rest of the elves, and Kith-Kanan sighed with concern as the last of the anonymous nobles left. The only ones remaining in the great hall were Quimant, the twins, and Nirakina.

“I know I shouldn’t have let him get under my skin like that. I’m sorry,” the general said to the Speaker.

“Nonsense. You said things I’ve wanted to voice for months. It’s better to have a warrior say them than a head of state.” Sithas paused awkwardly.

“What he did say – how much truth was there to it?”

“Very little,” sighed Kith-Kanan. “We are sheltering humans in the fortress, most of them the wives and families of Wildrunners. They would be slain on sight if they fell into the hands of the enemy.”

“And are elves fighting for Ergoth?” Sithas couldn’t keep the dismay from his voice.

“A few rogues, as I said,” Kith admitted. “At least, we’ve had reports of them.

I saw one myself in the human camp. But these turncoats are not numerous enough that we have taken notice of them on the field.”

He groaned and leaned backward, remembering the offensive and arrogant Theiwar dwarf. “That lout! I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t have my sword at my side.”

“You’re tired,” said Sithas. “Why don’t you relax for a while. This round of banquets and courts and all-night meetings, I’m sure, takes an adjustment. We can talk tomorrow.”

“Your brother is right. You do need rest,” Nirakina added in a maternal tone. “I’ll have dinner sent to your apartments.”

*

The dinner arrived, as Nirakina had promised. Kith-Kanan guessed that his mother had sent orders to the kitchen, and someone in the kitchen had communicated the situation to another interested party. For it was Hermathya who knocked on his door and entered.

“Hello, Hermathya,” he said, sitting up in the bed. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see her, and if he was honest with himself, neither was he very much dismayed.

“I took this from the serving girl,” she said, bringing forward a large silver tray with domed, steaming dishes and crystal platters. Once again he was struck by her air of youth and innocence.

Memories of the two of them together …. Kith-Kanan felt a sudden resurgence of desire, a feeling that he thought had been gone for years. He wanted to take her in his arms. Looking into her eyes, he knew that she desired the same thing.

“I’ll get up. We can dine near the windows.” He didn’t want to suggest they go to the balcony. He felt there was something furtive and private about her visit.

“Just stay there,” she said softly. “I’ll serve you in bed.”

He wondered what she meant, at first. Soon he learned, as the dinner grew cold upon a nearby table.

Chapter 10

THE MORNING AFTER

Hermathya slipped away sometime during the middle of the night, and Kith-Kanan felt profoundly grateful in the morning that she was gone. Now, in the cold light of day, the passion that had seized them seemed like nothing so much as a malicious and hurtful interlude. The flame that had once drawn them together ought not to be rekindled.

Kith-Kanan spent most of the day with his brother, touring the stables and farriers of the city. He forced himself to maintain focus on the task at hand: gathering additional horses to mount his cavalry forces for the time when the Wildrunnners took to the offensive. They both knew that they would, they must, eventually attack the human army. They couldn’t simply wait out the siege.

During these hours together, Kith found that he couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes. Sithas remained cheerful and enthusiastic, friendly in a way that twisted Kith-Kanan’s gut. By midafternoon, he made an excuse to leave his twin’s company, pleading the need to give Arcuballis some exercise. In reality, he needed an escape, a chance to suffer his guilt in solitude.

The following days in Silvanost passed slowly, making even the bleak confinement in beseiged Sithelbec seem eventful by comparison. He avoided Hermathya, and he found to his relief that she seemed to be avoiding him as well. The few times he saw her she was with Sithas, playing the doting wife holding tightly to her husband’s arm and hanging upon his every word.

In truth, the time dragged for Sithas as well. He knew that Vedvedsica was laboring to create a spell that might allow them to magically ensnare the griffons, but he was impatient to begin the quest. He ascribed Kith-Kanan’s unease to similar impatience. When they were together, they spoke only of the war and waited for a message from the mysterious cleric.

That word did not come for eight days, and then, oddly, it arrived in the middle of the night. The twins were wide awake, engaged in deep discussion in Sithas’s chambers, when they heard a rustling on the balcony beyond the open window. Sithas drew the draperies aside, and the sorcerous cleric stepped into the room.

Kith-Kanan’s eyes immediately fell upon Vedvedsica’s hand, for he carried a long ivory tube, the ends capped by cork. Several arcane sigils, in black, marked its alabaster surface.

The cleric raised the object, and the twins instinctively understood, even before Vedvedsica uncorked the end and withdrew a rolled sheet of oiled vellum. Unrolling the scroll, he showed them a series of symbols scribed in the Old Script.

“The spell of command,” the priest explained softly. “With this magic, I believe the griffons can be tamed.”

*

The twins planned to depart after one more day of final preparations. With the scroll at last a reality, a new urgency marked their activity. They met with Nirakina and Lord Quimant shortly after breakfast, a few hours after Vedvedsica had departed.

The four of them gathered in the royal library, where a fire crackled in the hearth to disperse the autumnal chill. Sithas brought the scroll, though he placed his cloak over it as he set it on the floor. They all sat in the great leatherbacked chairs that faced the fire.

“We have word of a discovery that may change the course of the war – for the better,” announced Kith.

“Splendid!” Quimant was enthusiastic. Nirakina merely looked at her sons, her concern showing in the furrowing of her brow.

“You know of Arcuballis, of course,” continued the warrior. “He was given to Sithel – to father – by a ‘merchant’ from the north.” According to the strategy he and Sithas had developed, they would say nothing about the involvement of the gray cleric. “We have since learned that the Khalkist Mountains are home to a great herd of the creatures – hundreds of them, at least.”

“Do you have proof of this, or is it merely rumor?” asked Nirakina. Her face had grown pale.

“They have been seen,” explained Kith-Kanan, glossing over the question. He told Quimant and Nirakina of his dream on the night before he departed Sithelbec. “Right down to the three volcanoes, it bears out everything we’ve been able to learn.”

“Think of the potential!” Sithas added. “A whole wing of flying cavalry! Why, the passage of Arcuballis alone sent hundreds of horses into a stampede. A sky full of griffons could very well rout the whole Army of Ergoth!”

“It seems a great leap,” Nirakina said slowly and quietly, “from the knowledge of griffons in a remote mountain range to a trained legion of flyers, obeying the commands of their riders.” She was still pale, but her voice was strong and steady.

“We believe we can find them,” Sithas replied levelly. “We leave at tomorrow’s sunrise to embark upon this quest.”

“How many warriors will you take?” asked Nirakina, knowing as they all did the legends of the distant Khalkists. Tales of ogres, dark and evil dwarves, even tribes of brutish hill giants – these comprised the folklore whispered by the average elf regarding the mountain range that was the central feature of the continent of Ansalon.

“Only the two of us will go.” Sithas faced his mother, who appeared terribly frail in her overly-large chair.

“We’ll ride Arcuballis,” Kith-Kanan explained quickly. “And he’ll cover the distance in a fraction of the time it would take an army – even if we had one to send.”

Nirakina looked at Kith-Kanan, her eyes pleading. Her warrior son understood the appeal. She wanted him to volunteer to go alone, leaving the Speaker of the Stars behind. Yet even as this thought flashed in her eyes, she lowered her head.

When she looked up, her voice was firm again. “How will you capture these creatures, assuming that you find them?”

Sithas removed his cloak and picked up the tube from the floor beside his chair. “We have acquired a spell of command from a friend of the House of Silvanos. If we can find the griffons, the spell will bind them to our will.”

“It is a more powerful version of the same enchantment that was used to domesticate Arcuballis,” added Kith. “It is written in the Old Script. That is one reason why Sithas must go with me – to help me cast the spell by reading the Old Script.”

His mother looked at him, nodding calmly, more out of shock than from any true sense of understanding.

Nirakina had stood beside her husband through three centuries of rule. She had borne these two proud sons. She had suffered the news of her husband’s murder at the hands of a human and lived through the resulting war that now engulfed her nation, her family, and her people. Now she faced the prospect of her two sons embarking on what seemed to her a mad quest, in search of a miracle, with little more than a prayer of success.

Yet, above all, she was the matriarch of the House of Silver Moon. She, too, was a leader of the Silvanesti, and she understood some things about strength, about ruling, and about risk-taking. She had made known her objections, and she realized that the minds of her sons were set. Now she would give no further vent to her personal feelings.

She rose from her chair and nodded stiffly at each of her sons. Kith-Kanan went to her side, while Sithas remained in his chair, moved by her loyalty. The warrior escorted her to the door.

Quimant looked at Sithas, then turned to Kith-Kanan as he returned to his chair. “May your quest be speedy and successful. I only wish I could accompany you.”

Sithas spoke. “I shall entrust you to act as regent in my absence. You know the details of the nation’s daily affairs. I shall also need you to begin the conscription of new troops. By the end of winter, we will have to raise and train a new force to send to the plains.”

“I will do everything in my power,” pledged Quimant.

“Another thing,” added Sithas casually. “If Tamanier Ambrodel returns to the city, he is to be given quarters in the palace. I will need to see him immediately upon my return.”

Quimant nodded, rose, and bowed to the twins. “May the gods watch over you,” he said, then left.

*

“I have to go. Don’t you understand that?”

Sithas challenged Hermathya. She stomped about their royal bedchambers before whirling upon him. “You can’t! I forbid it!” Hermathya’s voice rose, becoming shrill. Her face, moments before blank with astonishment, now contorted in fury.

“Damn it! Listen to me!” Sithas scowled, his own anger rising. Stubborn and intractable, they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

“I’ve told you about the spell of binding. It’s in the Old Script. Kith doesn’t have the knowledge to use it, even if he found the griffons. I’m the only one who can read it properly.” He held her shoulders and continued to meet her eyes.

“I have to do this, not just for the good it will do our nation, but for me! That’s what you have to understand!”

“I don’t have to, and I won’t!” she cried, whirling away from him.

“Kith-Kanan has always been the one to face the dangers and the challenges of the unknown. Now there’s something that I must do. I, too, must put my life at risk. For once, I’m not just sending my brother into danger. I’m going myself!”

“But you don’t have to!”

Hermathya almost spat her anger, but Sithas wouldn’t budge. If she could see any sense in his desire to test himself, she wouldn’t admit it. Finally, in exhaustion and frustration, the Speaker of the Stars stormed out of the chambers.

*

He found Kith-Kanan in the stables, instructing the saddlemaker on modifications to Arcuballis’s harness. The griffon would be able to carry the two of them, but his flight would be slowed, and they would be able to take precious little in the way of provisions and equipment.

“Dried meat – enough for only a few weeks,” recited Kith-Kanan, examining the bulging saddlebags. “A pair of waterskins, several extra cloaks. Tinder and flint, a couple of daggers. Extra bowstrings. We’ll carry our bows where we can get at them in a hurry, of course. And twoscore arrows. Do you have a practical sword?”

For a moment, Sithas flushed. He knew that the ceremonial blade he had carried for years would be inadequate for the task at hand. Cast in a soft silver alloy, its shining blade was inscribed with all manner of symbols in the Old Script, reciting the glorious history of the House of Silvanos. It was beautiful and valuable, but impractical in a fight. Still, it rankled him to hear his brother speak ill of it. “Lord Quimant has procured a splendid longsword for me,” he said stiffly. “It will do quite nicely.”

“Good.” Kith took no notice of his brother’s annoyance. “We’ll have to leave our metal armor behind. With this load, Arcuballis can’t handle the extra weight. Have you a good set of leathers?”

Again Sithas replied in the affirmative.

“Well, we’ll be ready to go at first light, then. Ah —”

Kith hesitated, then asked, “How did Hermathya react?” Kith knew that Sithas had put off telling Hermathya that he would be gone for weeks on this journey.

“Poorly,” Sithas, said, with a grimace. He offered no elaboration, and Kith-Kanan did not probe further.

They attended a small banquet that night, joined by Quimant and Nirakina and several other nobles. Hermathya was conspicuously absent, a fact for which Kith was profoundly grateful, and the mood was subdued.

He had found himself anxious throughout these last days that Hermathya would tell her husband about her dalliance with his brother. Kith-Kanan had tried to put aside the memory of that night, treating the incident as some sort of waking dream. This made his guilt somewhat easier to bear.

After dinner, Nirakina handed Sithas a small vial. The stoneware jar was tightly plugged by a cork.

“It is a salve, made by the clerics of Quenesti Pah,” she explained.

“Miritelisina gave it to me. If you are injured, spread a small amount around the area of the wound. It will help the healing.”

“I hope we won’t need it, but thank you,” said Sithas. For a moment, he wondered if his mother was about to cry, but again her proud heritage sustained her. She embraced each of her sons warmly, kissed them, and wished them the luck of the gods. Then she retired to her chambers.

Both of the twins spent much of the night awake, taut with the prospect of the upcoming adventure. Sithas tried to see his wife in the evening and again before sunrise, but she wouldn’t open her door even to speak to him. He settled for a few moments with Vanesti, holding his son in his arms and rocking him gently while night gave way to early dawn.

Chapter 11

DAY OF DEPARTURE,
AUTUMN

They met at the stables before dawn. As they had requested, no one came to see them off. Kith threw the heavy saddle over the restless griffon’s back, making sure that the straps that passed around Arcuballis’s wings were taut. Sithas stood by, watching as his brother hoisted the heavy saddlebags over the creature’s loins. The elf took several minutes to make sure that everything was secure.

They mounted the powerful beast, with Kith-Kanan in the fore, and settled into the specially modified saddle. Arcuballis trotted from the stable doors into the wide corral. Here he sprang upward, the thick muscles of his legs propelling them from the ground. His powerful wings beat the still air and thrust downward. In a single fluid motion, he leaped again and they were airborne.

The griffon labored over the garden and then along the city’s main avenue, slowly gaining altitude. The twins saw the towers of the city pass alongside, then slowly fall behind. Rosy hues of dawn quickly brightened to pink, then pale blue, as the sun seemed to explode over the eastern horizon into a crisp and cloudless day.

“By the gods, this is fantastic!” cried Sithas, overcome with the beauty of their flight, with the sight of Silvanost, and perhaps with the exhilaration of at last escaping the confining rituals of his daily life.

Kith-Kanan smiled to himself, pleased with his brother’s enthusiasm. They flew above the Thon-Thalas River, following the silvery ribbon of its path. Though autumn had come to the elven lands, the day was brilliant with sunshine, the air was clear, and a brilliant collage of colors spread across the forested lands below.

The steady pulse of the griffon’s wings carried them for many hours. The city quickly fell away, though the Tower of the Stars remained visible for some time. By midmorning, however, they soared over pristine forestland. No building broke the leafy canopy to indicate that anyone – elf, human, or whatever – lived here.

“Are these lands truly uninhabited?” inquired Sithas, studying the verdant terrain.

“The Kagonesti dwell throughout these forests,” explained Kith. The wild elves, considered uncouth and barbaric by the civilized Silvanesti, did not build structures to dominate the land or monuments to their own greatness. Instead, they took the land as they found it and left it that way when they passed on.

Arcuballis swept northward, as if the great griffon felt the same joy at leaving civilization behind. Despite the heavy packs and his extra passenger, he showed no signs of tiring during a flight that lasted nearly twelve hours and carried them several hundred miles. When they ultimately landed to make camp, they touched earth beside a clear pool in a sheltered forest grotto. The two elves and their mighty beast spent a peaceful night, sleeping almost from the moment of sunset straight through until dawn.

Their flight took them six days. After the first day, they took a two-hour interval at midday so that Arcuballis could rest. They passed beyond the forests on the third day, then into the barren plains of Northern Silvanesti, a virtual desert, uninhabited and undesired by the elves.

Finally they flew beside the jagged teeth of the Khalkist Range, the mountainous backbone of Ansalon. For two full days, these craggy peaks rose to their left, but Kith-Kanan kept them over the dry plains, explaining that the winds here were more easily negotiable than they would be among the jutting summits.

Eventually they reached the point where they had to turn toward the high valleys and snow-filled swales if they expected to find any trace of their quarry.

Arcuballis strained to gain altitude, carrying them safely over the sheer crests of the foothills and flying above the floor of a deep valley, following the contours of its winding course as steep ridgelines rose to the right and left, high above them.

They camped that night, the seventh night of their journey, near a partially frozen lake in the base of a steep-sided, circular valley. Three waterfalls, now frozen into massive icicles, plunged toward them from the surrounding heights.

They chose the spot for its small grove of hardy cedars, reasoning correctly that firewood would be a useful, and rare, commodity among these lofty realms.

Sithas helped his brother build the fire. He discovered that he relished the feel of the small axeblade cutting the wood into kindling. The campfire soon crackled merrily, and the warmth on his hands was especially gratifying because his work had provided the welcome heat.

Thus far, their journey seemed to the Speaker of the Stars to be the grandest adventure he had ever embarked upon.

“Where do you think the Lords of Doom lie from here?” he asked his brother as they settled back to gnaw on some dried venison. The three volcanoes were rumored to lie at the heart of the range.

“I don’t know exactly,” Kith admitted. “Somewhere to the north and west of here, I should say. The city of Sanction lies on the far side of the range, and if we reach it, we’ll know we’ve gone too far.”

“I never knew that the mountains could be so beautiful, so majestic,” Sithas added, gazing at the awesome heights around them. The sun had long since left their deep valley, yet its fading rays still illumined some of the highest summits in brilliant reflections of white snow and blue ice.

“Forbidding, too.”

They looked toward Arcuballis as the griffon curled up near the fire. His massive bulk loomed like a wall. “Now we’ll have to start searching,” Kith commented. “And that might take us a long time.”

“How big can this range be?” asked Sithas skeptically. “After all, we can fly.”

*

Fly they did, for day after grueling, bone-chilling day. The pleasant autumn of the lowlands swiftly became brutal winter in these heights. They pressed to the highest elevations, and Sithas felt a fierce exultation as they passed among the lofty ridges, a sense of accomplishment that dwarfed anything he had done in the city. When the snow blew into their faces, he relished the heavy cloak pulled tight against his face; when they spent a night in the barren heights, he enjoyed the search for a good campsite.

Kith-Kanan remained quiet, almost brooding, for hours during their aerial search. The guilt of his night with Hermathya gnawed at him, and he cursed his foolish weakness. He longed to confess to Sithas, to ask for his forgiveness, but in his heart, he sensed that this would be a mistake, that his brother would never forgive him. Instead, he bore his pain privately.

Some days the sun shone brightly, and then the white bowls of the valleys became great reflectors. They both learned, the first such day, to leave no skin exposed under these conditions. Their cheeks and foreheads were brutally seared, yet ironically the cold air prevented them from feeling the sunburn until it had reached a painful state.

On other days, gray clouds pressed like a leaden blanket overhead, cloaking the highest summits and casting the vistas in a bleak and forbidding light. Then the snow would fly, and Arcuballis had to seek firm ground until the storm passed. A driving blizzard could toss the griffon about like a leaf in the wind.

Always they pushed through the highest summits of the range, searching each valley for sign of the winged creatures. They swung southward until they reached the borders of the ogrelands of Bloten. The valleys were lower here, but they saw signs of the brutish inhabitants everywhere – forestlands blackened by swath burning, great piles of tailings. Knowing that the griffons would seek a more remote habitat, they turned back to the north, following a snakelike glacier higher and higher into the heart of the range.

Here the weather hit them with the hardest blow yet. A mass of dark clouds appeared with explosive suddenness to the west. The expanse covered the sky and swiftly spread toward them. Arcuballis dove, but the snow swirled so thickly they couldn’t see the valley floor.

‘There – a ledge!” shouted Sithas, pointing over his brother’s shoulder.

“I see it.” Kith-Kanan directed Arcuballis onto a narrow shelf of rock protected by a blunt overhang. Sheer cliffs dropped away below them and climbed over their heads. Winds buffeted them even as the griffon landed, and further flight seemed suicidal. A narrow trail seemed to lead along the cliff face, winding gradually downward from their perch, but they elected to wait out the storm.

“Look – it’s flat and wide here,” announced Sithas, clearing away some loose rubble. “Plenty of space to rest, even for Arcuballis.”

Kith nodded.

They unsaddled the creature and settled in to wait as the winds rose to a howling crescendo and the snow flew past them.

“How long will this last?” asked Sithas.

Kith-Kanan shrugged, and Sithas suddenly felt foolish for the question. They unpacked their bedrolls and huddled together beside the warm flank of the griffon and the cold protection of the cliff wall. Their bows, arrows, and swords they placed within easy reach. Just beyond their feet, the slope of the mountainside plummeted away, a sheer precipice vanishing into the snow-swept distance.

They coped, on their remote ledge, for two solid days as the blizzard raged around them and the temperature dropped. They had no fuel for a fire, so they could only huddle together, taking turns sleeping so that they didn’t both drift into eternal rest, blanketed by a deep winter cold.

Sithas was awake at the end of the second day, shaking his head and pinching himself to try to remain alert. His hands and feet felt like blocks of ice, and he alternated his position frequently, trying to warm some part of his body against the bulk of Arcuballis.

He noticed the pace of the griffon’s breathing change slightly. Suddenly the creature raised his head, and Sithas stared with him into the snow-obscured murk.

Was there something there, down the path that they had seen when they landed, the one that seemed to lead away from this ledge? Sithas blinked, certain his eyes deceived him, but it had seemed as if something moved!

In the next instant, he gaped in shock as a huge shape lunged out of the blowing snow. It towered twice as high as an elf, though its shape was vaguely human. It had arms and hands – indeed, one of those clutched a club the size of a small tree trunk. This weapon loomed high above Sithas as the creature charged forward.

“Kith! A giant!” He shouted, kicking his brother to awaken him. At the same time, purely by instinct, he picked up the sword he had laid by his side.

Arcuballis reacted faster than the elf, springing toward the giant with a powerful shriek. Sithas watched in horror as the monster’s club crashed into the griffon’s skull. Soundlessly Arcuballis went limp, disappearing over the side of the ledge like so much discarded garbage.

“No!” Kith-Kanan was awake now and saw the fate of his beloved steed. At the same time, the twins saw additional shapes, two or three more, materializing from the blizzard behind the first giant. Snarling with hatred, the elven warrior grabbed his blade.

The monster’s face, this close, was more grotesque than Sithas had first thought. Its eyes were small, bloodshot, and very close-set while its nose bulged like an outcrop of rock. Its mouth was garishly wide. The giant’s maw gaped open as the beast fought, revealing blood-red gums and stubs of ivory that looked more like tusks than teeth.

A deep and pervasive terror seized Sithas, freezing him in place. He could only stare in horror at the approaching menace. Some distant part of his mind told him that he should react, should fight, but his muscles refused to budge.

His fear paralyzed him.

Kith-Kanan rose into a fighting crouch, menacing the giant with his sword.

Tears streaked Kith’s face, but grief only heightened his rage and his deadly competence. His hand remained steady. Seeing him, Sithas shook his head, finally freeing himself from his immobility.

Sithas leaped to his feet and lunged at the monster, but his foot slipped on the icy rocks, and he fell to the rocks at the very lip of the precipice, slamming the wind from his lungs. The giant loomed over him.

But then he saw his brother, darting forward with incredible agility, raising his blade and thrusting at the giant’s belly. The keen steel struck home, and the creature howled, lurching backward. One of its huge boots slipped from the ice-encrusted ledge, and with a scream, the monster vanished into the gray storm below.

Now they saw that the three other giants approached them, one at a time along the narrow ledge. Each of the massive creatures carried a huge club. The first of these lumbered forward, and Kith-Kanan darted at him. Sithas, recovering his breath, climbed to his feet.

The giant stepped back, then swung a heavy blow at the dodging, weaving elf. Kith danced away, and then struck so quickly that Sithas didn’t see the movement. The tip of the sword cut a shallow opening in the giant’s knee before the elf skipped backward.

But that cut was telling. Sithas watched in astonishment as the giant’s leg collapsed beneath it. Thrashing in futility with its hamlike hands, the giant slid slowly over the edge, vanishing with a shriek that was quickly lost in the howling of the storm.

While the other two giants gaped in astonishment, Kith-Kanan remained a dervish of motion. He charged the massive creatures, sending them slipping and sliding backward along the ledge to avoid his keen blade, a blade that now glistened with blood.

“Kith, watch out!” Sithas found his voice and urged his brother on. Kith-Kanan appeared to stumble, and one of the giants crashed his heavy club downward. But again the elf moved too quickly, and the club splintered against bare stone. Kith rolled toward this one, rising into a crouch between its stumplike legs. He stabbed upward with all the strength in his powerful arms and shoulders, and then dove out of the way as the mortally wounded giant bellowed its pain.

Sithas raced toward his brother, recognizing Kith’s danger. He saw his twin slip as he tried to hug the cliff wall between the dying giant and its sole remaining comrade.

The latter swung his club with strength born of desperate terror. The loglike beam, nearly a foot thick at its head, crashed into Kith-Kanan’s chest and crushed his body against the rough stone wall behind him. Sithas saw his brother’s head snap back and blood explode from his skull. Slowly the elf sank to the ledge.

The wounded giant collapsed, and Sithas sent it toppling from the brink. The last of the brutes looked at the charging elf, the twin of the warrior he had just felled, and turned away. He bounded along the narrow ledge, descending across the face of the mountain, away from the niche that had sheltered the twins. In seconds, he disappeared into the distance.

Sithas paid no further attention to the monster. He knelt at Kith’s side, appalled at the blood that gushed from his brother’s mouth and nose, staining and matting his long blond hair.

“Kith, don’t die! Please!” He didn’t realize that he was sobbing.

Gingerly he lifted his brother, surprised at Kith’s frailty – or perhaps at his own desperate strength. He carried him to their niche. Every cloak, every blanket and tunic that they carried, he used to cushion and wrap Kith-Kanan. His brother’s eyes were closed. A very faint motion, a rising and falling of his chest, gave the only sign that Kith lived.

Now night fell with abruptness, and the wind seemed to pick up. The snow stung Sithas’s face as sharply as did his own tears. He took Kith’s cold hand in his and sat beside his brother, not expecting either of them to be alive to greet the dawn.

Chapter 12

DAWN

Somehow Sithas must have dozed off, for he suddenly noticed that the wind, the snow – indeed, the entire storm – had vanished. The air, now still, had become icy cold, with an absolute clarity that only comes in the highest mountains during the deepest winter frosts.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the Speaker could see that all around him towered summits of unimaginable heights, plumed with great collars of snow. Gray and impassive, like stone-face giants with thick beards of frost, they regarded him from their aloof vantages.

The brothers’ ledge perched along one of the two steep sides of the valley. To the south, on Sithas’s left as he looked outward, the valley stretched and twisted toward the low, forested country from which they had come. To the right, it appeared to end in a cirque of steep-walled peaks. At one place, he saw a saddle that, while still high above him, seemed to offer a lone, treacherous path into the next section of the mountain range.

Kith-Kanan lay motionless beside him. His skin had the paleness of death, and Sithas had to struggle against a resurgence of despair. He couldn’t allow himself to abandon hope; he was their only chance for survival. The quest for the griffons, the excitement and adventure of the journey he had known before, were all forgotten now, overwhelmed by the simple and basic wish to continue living.

The valley below him, he saw, was not as deep as they had guessed when the storm struck. Their shelf was a bare hundred feet above level ground. He leaned out to look over the edge, but all he saw was a vast drift of snow piled against the cliff. If the bodies of the giants or of gallant, fallen Arcuballis remained down there somewhere, he had no way to know it. No trees grew in this high valley, nor did he see any signs of animal life. In fact, the only objects that met his eyes, in any direction, were the bedrock of the mountain range and the snowy blanket that covered it.

With a groan, he slumped back against the cliff. They were doomed! He could see no possibility of any fate other than death in this remote valley. His throat ached, and tears welled in his eyes. What good was his court training in a situation like this?

“Kith!” he moaned. “Wake up! Please!”

When his brother made no response, Sithas collapsed facedown on his cloak. A part of him wished that he was as unconscious of their fate as Kith-Kanan.

For the whole long day, he lay as if in a trance. He pulled their cloaks about them as night fell, certain that they would freeze to death. Kith-Kanan hadn’t moved – indeed, he barely breathed. Broken by his own anguish, the speaker finally tumbled into restless sleep.

It was not until the next morning that he regained some sense of purpose. What did they need? Warmth, but there was no firewood in sight. Water, but their skins of the liquid had frozen solid, and without fire, they couldn’t melt snow. Food, of which they had several strips of dried venison and some bread. But how could he feed Kith-Kanan while his brother remained unconscious?

Again the feeling of hopelessness seized him. If only Arcuballis were here! If only Kith could walk! If only the giants … He snarled at himself in anger, realizing the idiocy of his ramblings.

Instead, he pushed himself to his feet, suddenly aware of a terrible stiffness in his own body. He studied the route along the narrow ledge that twisted its way from their niche to the valley floor. It looked negotiable – barely. But what could he do if he was lucky enough to reach the ground?

He noted, for the first time, a dark patch on the snow at the edge of the flat expanse. The sun had crested the eastern peaks by now, and Sithas squinted into the brightness.

What caused the change of coloration in the otherwise immaculate surface of snow? Then it dawned on him – water! Somewhere beneath that snow, water still flowed! It soaked into the powder above, turning it to slush and causing it to settle.

With a clear goal now, Sithas began to act. He took his own nearly empty waterskin, since Kith’s contained a block of ice that would be impossible to remove. As he turned away from the sun, however, he had another idea. He set Kith’s waterskin in the sunlight, on a flat stone. He found several other dark boulders and placed them beside the skin, taking care that they didn’t block the sunlight.

Then he started down the treacherous ledge. In many places, the narrow path was piled with snow, and he used his sword to sweep these drifts away, carefully probing so that he did not step off the cliff.

Finally he reached a spot where he was able to drop into the soft snow below.

He pushed his way through the deep fluff, leaving a trench behind him as he worked his way toward the dark patch of slush. The going was difficult, and he had to rest many times, but finally he reached his goal.

Pausing again, he heard a faint trill of sound from beneath the snow, the gurgling of water as it babbled along a buried stream. He poked and pressed with his sword, and the surface of snow dropped away, revealing a flowage about six inches deep.

But that was enough. Sithas suspended his skin from the tip of his sword and let it soak in the stream. Though it only filled halfway, it was more water than they had tasted in two days, and he greedily drained the waterskin. Then he refilled it, as much as possible with his awkward rig, and turned back to the cliff. It took him more than an hour to carry it back up to Kith-Kanan, but the hour of toil seemed to warm and vitalize him.

His brother showed no change. Sithas dribbled some water into Kith’s mouth, just enough to wet his tongue and throat. He also washed away the blood that had caked on the elf’s frostbitten face. There was even some water left over, since Kith’s frozen waterskin had begun to melt from the heat of the sun.

“What now, Kith?” Sithas asked softly.

He heard a sound from somewhere and looked anxiously around. Again came the noise, which sounded like rocks falling down a rough slope.

Then he saw a distinct movement across the valley. White shapes leaped and sprang along the sheer face, and for a moment, he thought they flew, so effectively did they defy gravity. More rocks broke free, crashing and sliding downward. He saw that these nimble creatures moved upon hooves.

He had heard about the great mountain sheep that dwelled in the high places, but never had he observed them before. One, obviously the ram, paused and looked around, raising his proud head high. Sithas glimpsed his immense horns, swirling from the creature’s forehead.

For a moment, he wondered at the presence of these great beasts as he watched them press downward. They reached the foot of the cliff, and then the ram bounded through the powder, plowing a trail for the others.

“The water!” Sithas spoke aloud to himself. The sheep needed the water, too!

Indeed, the ram was nearing the shallow stream. Alert, he looked carefully around the valley, and Sithas, though he was out of sight, remained very still.

Finally the proud creature lowered his head to drink. He stopped frequently to look around, but he drank for a long time before he finally stepped away from the small hole in the snow.

Then, one by one, the females came to the water. The ram stood protectively beside them, his proud head and keen eyes shifting back and forth.

The group of mountain sheep spent perhaps an hour beside the water hole, each of the creatures slaking its thirst. Finally, with the ram still in the lead, they turned back along the tracks and reclimbed the mountain wall.

Sithas watched them until they disappeared from view. The magnificent creatures moved with grace and skill up the steep face of rock. They looked right at home here – so very different from himself!

A soft groan beside him pulled his attention instantly back to Kith-Kanan.

“Kith! Say something!” He leaned over his twin’s face, rejoicing to see a flicker of vitality. Kith-Kanan’s eyes remained shut, but his mouth twisted into a grimace and he was gasping for breath.

“Here, take a drink. Don’t try to move.”

He poured a few drops of water onto Kith’s lips, and the wounded elf licked them away. Slowly, with obvious pain, Kith-Kanan opened his eyes, squinting at the bright daylight before him.

“What … happened?” he asked weakly. Abruptly his eyes widened and his body tensed. “The giants! Where …?”

“It’s all right,” Sithas told him, giving him more water. “They’re dead – or gone, I’m not sure which.”

“Arcuballis?” Kith’s eyes widened and he struggled to sit up, before collapsing with a dull groan.

“He’s … gone, Kith. He attacked the first giant, got clubbed over the head, and fell.”

“He must be down below!”

Sithas shook his head. “I looked. There’s no sign of his body – or of any of the giants, either.”

Kith moaned, a sound of deep despair. Sithas had no words of comfort.

“The giants … what kind of beasts do you think they were?” asked Sithas.

“Hill giants, I’m sure,” Kith-Kanan said after a moment’s pause. “Relatives of ogres, I guess, but bigger. I wouldn’t have expected to see them this far south.”

“Gods! If only I’d been faster!” Sithas said, ashamed.

“Don’t!” snapped the injured elf. “You warned me – gave me time to get my sword out, to get into the fight.” Kith-Kanan thought for a moment. “When – how long ago was it, anyway? How much time has passed since —”

“We’ve been up here for two nights,” said Sithas quietly. “The sun has nearly set for the third time.” He hestitated, then blurted his question. “How badly are you hurt?”

“Bad enough,” Kith said bluntly. “My skull feels like it’s been crushed, and my right leg seems as if it is on fire.”

“Your leg?” Sithas had been so worried about the blow to his brother’s head that he had paid little attention to the rest of his body.

“It’s broken, I think,” the elf grunted, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Sithas’s mind went blank. A broken leg! It might as well be a sentence of death! How would they ever get out of here with his twin thus crippled? And winter had only begun! If they didn’t get out of the mountains quickly, they could be trapped here for months. Another snowfall would make travel by foot all but impossible.

“You’ll have to do something about it,” Kith said, though it took several moments before the remark registered in Sithas’s mind.

“About what?”

“My leg!” The injured elf looked at his twin sharply, then toughened his voice.

Almost without thinking, he used the tones of command he had become accustomed to when he led the Wildrunners.

“Tell me if the skin is broken, if there’s any discoloration – any infection.”

“Where? Which leg?” Sithas struggled to focus his thoughts. He had never been so disoriented before in his life.

“The right one, below the knee.”

Gingerly, almost trembling, Sithas pulled the blankets and cloaks away from his brother’s feet and legs. What he saw was terrifying.

The ugly red swelling had almost doubled the size of the limb from the knee to the ankle, and Kith’s leg was bent outward at an awkward angle. For a moment, he cursed himself, as if the injury was his own fault. Why hadn’t he thought to examine his brother two days earlier, when Kith had first been injured? Had he twisted the wound more when he moved the fallen elf into the shelter of the rocky niche?

“The – the skin isn’t broken,” he explained, trying to keep his voice calm. “But it’s red. By the gods, Kith, it’s blood red!”

Kith-Kanan grimaced at the news. “You’ll have to straighten it. If you don’t, I’ll be crippled for life.”

The Speaker of the Stars looked at his twin brother, the sense of helplessness growing inside him. But he saw the pain in Kith-Kanan’s eyes, and he knew he had no choice but to try.

“It’s going to hurt,” he warned, and Kith nodded silently, gritting his teeth.

Cautiously he touched the swollen limb, and then instantly recoiled at Kith’s sharp gasp of pain. “Don’t stop,” hissed the wounded elf. “Do it – now!”

Gritting his teeth, Sithas grasped the swollen flesh. His fingers probed the wound, and he felt the break in the bone. Kith-Kanan cried aloud, gasping and choking in his pain as Sithas pulled on the limb.

Kith shrieked again and then, mercifully, collapsed into unconsciousness.

Desperately Sithas tugged, forcing his hands and arms to do these things that he knew must be causing Kith-Kanan unspeakable pain.

Finally he felt the bones slip into place.

“By Quenesti Pah, I’m sorry, Kith,” Sithas whispered, looking at his brother’s terribly pale face.

Quenesti Pah … goddess of healing. The invocation of that benign goddess brought his mind around to the small vial his mother had given them before they departed. From Miritelesina, she had said, high priestess of Quenesti Pah.

Frantically Sithas dug through the saddlebag, finally discovering the little ceramic jar, plugged with a stout cork.

He popped the cork from the bottle’s mouth and immediately recoiled at the pungent scent. Smearing some of the salve on his fingers, he drew off the cloak and spread the stuff on Kith’s leg, above and below the wound. That done, he covered his brother with the blankets and leaned back against the stone wall to wait.

Kith-Kanan remained unconscious throughout the impossibly long afternoon as the sun sank through the pale blue sky and finally disappeared behind the western ridge. Still, no sign of movement came from the wounded elf. If anything, he seemed even weaker.

Gently Sithas fed his brother drops of water. He wrapped him in all of their blankets and lay down beside him.

He fell asleep that way, and though he awoke many times throughout the brutally cold night, he stayed at Kith-Kanan’s side until dawn began to brighten their valley.

Kith-Kanan showed no sign of reviving consciousness. Sithas looked at his brother’s leg and was appalled to see a streak of red running upward, past his knee and into his thigh. What should he do? He had never seen an injury like this before. Unlike Kith-Kanan, he hadn’t been confronted by the horrors of battle or by the necessity of self-sufficiency in the wilds.

Quickly the elf took the rest of the cleric’s salve and smeared it onto the wound. He knew enough about blood poisoning to realize that if the venomous infection could not be arrested, his brother was doomed. With no way left to treat Kith-Kanan, however, all Sithas could do was pray.

Once again the water in their skins was frozen, and so he made the arduous trek down the narrow pathway from the ledge to the valley floor. The trough in the snow made by his passage on the previous day remained, for the wind had remained blessedly light. Thus he made his way to his snow rimmed water hole with less difficulty than the day before.

But here he encountered a challenge: The bitter cold of the night had frozen even the rapidly flowing water beneath the snow. He chopped and chipped with his sword, finally exposing a small trickle, less than two inches deep. Only by stretching himself full-length in the snow, and immersing his hand into the frigid water could he collect enough to carry back to their high campsite.

As he rose from the water hole, he saw the trail of the sheep across from him and remembered the magnificent creatures. Suddenly he was seized by an inspiration. He thought of his bow and arrows, still up on the ledge with Kith-Kanan. How could he conceal himself in order to get close enough to shoot?

Unlike Kith-Kanan, he was not an expert archer. A close target would be essential.

He gave up his ponderings in the effort of making his way back to the ledge.

Here he found no change in Kith-Kanan, and all he could do was force his brother once again to take a few drops of water between his lips.

Afterward, he strung his bow, checking the smooth surface of the weapon for flaws, the string for knots or frays. As he did so, he heard a clattering of hooves even as he stewed in his frustration. Once again led by the proud ram, the mountain sheep descended from their slope across the valley and made their way to the faint trickle of water. They took turns drinking and watching, with the ram remaining alert.

Once, when the creature’s eyes passed across the cliff where Sithas and Kith lay motionless, the animal stiffened. Sithas wondered if he had been discovered and wrestled with a compulsion to quickly nock an arrow and let it fly in the desperate hope of hitting something.

But he forced himself to remain still, and finally the ram relaxed its guard.

Sithas sighed and clenched his teeth in frustration as he watched the creatures turn and plow through the snow back toward their mountain fastness. The powdery drifts came to the shoulders of the large ram, and the sheep floundered and struggled until they reached the secure footing of the rocky slope.

The rest of the day passed in frigid monotony. That night was the coldest yet, and Sithas’s own shivering kept him awake. He would have been grateful for even such an uncomfortable sign of life from his brother, but Kith-Kanan remained still and lifeless.

The fourth morning on the ridge, Sithas could barely bring himself to emerge from beneath the cloaks and blankets. The sun rose over the eastern ridge, and still he lay motionless.

Then urgency returned, and he sat up in panic. He sensed instinctively that today was his last chance. If he could not feed himself and his brother, they would not experience another dawn.

He grabbed his bow and arrows, strapped his sword to his back, and allowed himself the luxury of one woolen cloak from the pile that sheltered Kith-Kanan.

He made his way down the cliff with almost reckless haste. Only after he nearly slipped fifty feet above the valley floor did he calm himself, forcing his feet to move with more precision.

He pushed toward the water hole, feeling sensation return to his limbs and anticipation and tension fill his heart. Finally he reached the place opposite where the sheep came to drink. He didn’t allow himself to ponder a distinct possibility: What if the sheep didn’t return here today? If they didn’t, he and his brother would die. It was a simple as that.

Urgently he swept a shallow excavation in the snow, fearful that the sheep might already be on their way. He swung his eyes to the southern ridge, to the slope the sheep had descended on each of the two previous days, but he saw no sign of movement.

In minutes, Sithas cleared the space he desired. A quick check showed no sign of the sheep. Trembling with tension, he freed his bow and arrows and laid them before him in the snow. Next he knelt, forcing his feet into the powdery fluff behind him. He took the cloak he had brought and lay it before him, before stretching, belly down, on top.

The last thing was the hardest to do. He pulled snow from each side into the excavation, burying his thighs, buttocks, and torso. Only his shoulders, arms, and head remained exposed.

Feeling the chill settle into his bones as he pressed deeper into the snowy cushion, he twisted to the side and pulled still more of the winter powder onto him. His bow, with several arrows ready, he covered with a faint dusting of snow directly in front of him.

Finally he buried his head, leaving an opening no more than two inches in diameter before his face. From this tiny slot, he could see the water hole and he could get enough air to breathe. At last his trap was ready. Now he had only to wait.

And wait. And wait some more. The sun passed the zenith, the hour when the sheep had come to water on each of the previous days, with no sign of the creatures. Cold numbness crept into Sithas’s bones. His fingers and toes burned from frostbite, which was bad enough, but gradually he became aware that he was losing feeling in them altogether. Frantically he wiggled and stretched as much as he could within the limitations of his confinement.

Where were the accursed sheep?

An hour of the afternoon passed, and another began. He could no longer keep any sensation in his fingers. Another few hours, he knew, and he would freeze to death.

But then he became aware of strange sensations deep within his snowy cocoon. Slowly, inexplicably, he began to grow warm. The burning returned to his fingertips. The snow around his body formed a cavity, slightly larger than Sithas himself, and he noticed that this snow was wet. It packed tightly, giving him room to move. He noticed wetness in his hair, on his back.

He was actually warm! The cavity had trapped his body heat, melting the snow and warming him with the trapped energy. The narrow slot had solidified before him, and it was with a sense of exhilaration that he realized he could wait here safely for some time.

But the arrival of twilight confirmed his worst fears – the sheep had not come to drink that day. Bitter with the sense of his failure, he tried to ignore the gnawing in his belly as he gathered more water and made the return to the ledge, arriving just as full darkness settled around them.

Had the sheep seen his trap? Had the flock moved on to some distant valley, following the course of some winter migration? He could not know. All he could do was try the same plan tomorrow and hope he lived long enough for the effort.

Sithas had to lean close to Kith-Kanan just to hear his brother’s breathing. “Please, Kith, don’t die!” he whispered. Those words were the only ones he spoke before he fell asleep.

His hunger was painful when he awoke. Once again the day was clear and still, but how long could this last? Grimly he repeated his process of the previous day, making his way to the stream bank, settling himself in with his bow and arrows, and trying to conceal any sign of his presence. If the sheep didn’t come today, he knew that he would be too weak to try on the morrow.

Exhausted, despairing, and starving, he passed from consciousness into an exhausted sleep.

Perhaps the snow insulated him from sound, or maybe his sleep was deeper than he thought. In any event, he heard nothing as his quarry approached. It wasn’t until the sheep had reached the water hole that he woke suddenly. They had come! They weren’t twenty feet away!

Not daring to breathe, Sithas studied the ram. The creature was even more magnificent up close. The swirled horns were more than a foot in diameter. The ram’s eyes swept around them, but Sithas realized with relief that the animal did not notice his enemy up close.

The ram, as usual, drank his fill and then stepped aside. One by one the ewes approached the small water hole, dipping their muzzles to slurp up the icy liquid. Sithas waited until most of the sheep had drank. As he had observed earlier, the smallest were the last to drink, and it was one of these that would prove his target.

Finally a plump ewe moved tentatively among her larger sisters. Sithas tensed himself, keeping his hands under the snow as he slowly reached forward for his bow.

Suddenly the ewe raised her head, staring straight at him. Others of the flock skittered to the sides. The elf felt two dozen eyes fixed upon his hiding place. Another second, he suspected, and the sheep would turn in flight. He couldn’t give them that opportunity.

With all of the speed, all of the agility at his command, he grasped his bow and arrows and lurched forward from his hiding place, his eyes fixed on the terrified ewe. Vaguely he sensed the sheep spinning, leaping, turning to flee. They struggled through the deep snow, away from this maniacal apparition who rose apparently from the very earth itself.

He saw the ram plunge forward, nudging the ewe that stood stock-still beside the water hole. With a panicked squeal, she turned and tried to spring away.

As she turned, for one split second, she presented her soft flank to the elven archer. Even as he struggled to his feet, Sithas had nocked his arrow. He pulled back the string as his target became a blur before him. Reflexively he let the missile fly. He prayed to all the gods, desperate for a hit.

But the gods were not impressed.

The arrow darted past the ewe’s rump, barely grazing her skin, just enough to spur the frightened creature into a maddened flight that took her bounding out of range even as Sithas fumbled with another arrow. He raised the weapon in time to see the ram kick his heels as that great beast, too, sprinted away.

The herd of mountain sheep bounded through the deep snow, springing and leaping in many different directions. Sithas launched another arrow and almost sobbed aloud in frustration as the missile flew over the head of a ewe. Mechanically he nocked another arrow, but even as he did so, he knew that the sheep had escaped.

For a moment, a sensation of catastrophe swept over him. He staggered, weak on his feet, and would have slumped to the ground if something hadn’t caught his attention.

A small sheep, a yearling, struggled to break free from a huge drift. The animal was scarcely thirty feet away, bleating pathetically. He knew then he had one more chance – perhaps the last chance – for survival. He held his aim steady, sighting down the arrow at the sheep’s heaving flank. The animal gasped for breath, and Sithas released the missile.

The steel-tipped shaft shot true, its barbed head striking the sheep behind its foreleg, driving through the heart and lungs in a powerful, fatal strike.

Bleating one final time, a hopeless call to the disappearing herd, the young sheep collapsed. Pink blood spurted from its mouth and nostrils, foaming into the snow. Sithas reached the animal’s side. Some instinct caused him to draw his sword, and he slashed the razor-sharp edge across the sheep’s throat. With a gurgle of air, the animal perished.

For a moment, Sithas raised his eyes to the ledge across the valley. The ewes scampered upward, while the ram lingered behind, staring back at the elf who had claimed one of his flock. Sithas felt a momentary sense of gratitude to the creature. His heart filled with admiration as he saw it bound higher and higher up the sheer slope.

Finally he reached down and gutted the carcass of his kill. The climb back to Kith-Kanan would be a tough one, he knew, but suddenly his body thrummed with excitement and energy.

Behind him, atop the ridge, the ram cast one last glance downward and then disappeared.

Chapter 13

FRESH BLOOD

Sithas cut a slice of meat from his kill on the valley floor, tearing bites from the raw meat, uncaring of the blood that dribbled across his chin. Smacking greedily, he wolfed down the morsel before he carried the rest of the carcass up the steep trail to their ledge. He found Kith-Kanan as still as when he had left him, but now, at least, they had food – they had hope!

The lack of fire created a drawback, but it didn’t prevent Sithas from devouring a large chunk of meat as soon as he got it back to the ledge. The blood, while it was still warm, he dribbled into his unconscious brother’s mouth, hoping that the warmth and nourishment might have a beneficial effect, however minimal.

Finally sated, Sithas settled back to rest. For the first time in days, he felt something other than bleak despair. He had stalked his game and slain it – something he had never done before, not without beaters and weapon-bearers and guides. Only his brother’s condition cast a pall over the situation.

For two more days, Kith’s condition showed no signs of change. Gray clouds rolled in, and a dusting of snow fell around them. Sithas trickled more of the ewe’s blood into Kith’s mouth, hiked down for water several times a day, and offered prayers to Quenesti Pah.

Then, toward sunset of their seventh day on the ledge, Kith groaned and moved. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around in confusion.

“Kith! Wake up!” Sithas leaned over his twin, and slowly Kith-Kanan’s eyes met his own. At first they looked dull and lifeless, but even as Sithas watched they grew brighter, more alert.

“What – how did you —?”

Sithas felt weak with relief and helped his brother to sit up. “It’s OK, Kith. You’ll be all right!” He forced more confidence into his tone than he actually felt.

Kith’s eyes fell upon the carcass, which Sithas had perched near the precipice. “What’s that?”

“Mountain sheep!” Sithas grinned proudly. “I killed it a few days ago. Here, have some!”

“Raw?” Kith-Kanan raised his eyebrows but quickly saw that there was no alternative. He took a tender loin portion and tore off a piece of meat. It was no delicacy, but it was sustenance. As he chewed, he saw Sithas watching him like a master chef savoring the reaction to a new recipe.

“It’s good,” Kith-Kanan said, swallowing and tearing off another mouthful.

Excitedly Sithas told him of stalking his prey – about his two wasted arrows and the lucky break that helped him make his kill.

Kith chuckled with a heartiness that belied his wounds and their predicament.

“Your leg,” Sithas said concernedly. “How does it feel today?”

Kith groaned and shook his head. “Need a cleric to work on it. I doubt it’ll heal enough to carry me.”

Sithas sat back, suddenly too tired to go on. Alone, he might be able to walk out of these mountains, but he didn’t see any way that Kith-Kanan could even get down from this exposed, perilous ledge.

For a while, the brothers sat in silence, watching the sun set. The sky domed over them, pale blue to the east and overhead but fading to a rose hue that blended into a rich lavender along the western ridge. One by one stars winked into sight. Finally darkness crept across the sky, expanding from the east to overhead, then pursuing the last lingering strips of brightness into the west.

“Any sign of Arcuballis?” asked Kith hopefully. His brother shook his head sadly.

“What do we do now?” Sithas asked.

To his dismay, his brother shook his head in puzzlement. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can get down from here, and we can’t finish our quest on this ledge.”

“Quest?” Sithas had almost forgotten about the mission that had brought them to these mountains. “You’re not suggesting we still seek out the griffons, are you?”

Kith smiled, albeit wanly. “No, I don’t think we can do much searching. You, however, might have a chance.”

Now Sithas gaped at his twin. “And leave you here alone? Don’t even think about it!”

The wounded elf gestured to stem Sithas’s outburst. “We have to think about it.”

“You won’t have a chance up here! I won’t abandon you!”

Kith-Kanan sighed. “Our chances aren’t that great any way you look at it.

Getting out of these mountains on foot is out of the question until spring. And the months of deep winter are still before us. We can’t just sit here, waiting for my leg to heal.”

“But what kind of progress can I make on foot?” Sithas gestured to the valley walls surrounding them.

Kith-Kanan pointed to the northwest, toward the pass that had been their goal before the storm had driven them to this ledge. The gap between the two towering summits was protected by a steep slope, strewn with large boulders and patches of scree. Strangely, snow had not collected there.

“You could investigate the next valley,” the elf suggested. “Remember, we’ve explored much of the range already.”

“That’s precious little comfort,” Sithas replied. “We flew over the mountains before. I’m not even sure I could climb that pass, let alone explore beyond it.”

Kith-Kanan studied the steep slope with a practiced eye. “Sure you could. Go up on the big rocks off to the side there. Stay away from those smooth patches. They look like easy going, but it’s sure to be loose scree. You’d probably slip back farther than you climbed with each step. But if you stay on the good footing, you could make it.”

The wounded elf turned his eyes upon his skeptical brother and continued.

“Even if you don’t find the griffons, perhaps you’ll locate a cave, or better yet some herdsman’s hut. Whatever lies over that ridge, it can’t be any more barren than this place.”

The Speaker of the Stars squatted back on his haunches, shaking his head in frustration. He had looked at the pass himself over the last few days and privately had decided that he would probably be able to climb it. But he had never considered the prospect of going without his brother.

Finally he made a decision. “I’ll go – but just to have a look. If I don’t see anything, I’m coming straight back here.”

“Agreed.” Kith-Kanan nodded. “Now maybe you can hand me another strip of lamb – only this time, I’d like it cooked a little more on the rare side. That last piece was too well done for my taste.”

Laughing, Sithas used his dagger to carve another strip of raw mutton. He had found that by slicing it very thin he could make the meat more palatable – at least, more easily chewed. And though it was still cold, it tasted very, very good.

*

Kith-Kanan sat up, leaning against the back wall of the ledge, and watched Sithas gather his equipment. It was nearly dawn. “Take some of my arrows,” he offered, but Sithas shook his head.

“I’ll leave them with you, just in case.”

“In case of what? In case that ram comes looking for revenge?”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Sithas looked away. They both knew that if the hill giants returned, Kith-Kanan would be helpless to do more than shoot a few arrows before he was overcome.

“Kith …” He wanted to tell his brother that he wouldn’t leave him, that he would stay at his side until his wounds had healed.

“No!” The injured elf raised a hand, anticipating his brother’s objections. “We both understand – we know that this is the only thing to do.”

“I – I suppose you’re right.”

“You know I’m right!” Kith’s voice was almost harsh.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Sithas – be careful.”

The Speaker of the Stars nodded dumbly. It made him feel like a traitor to leave his brother like this.

“Good luck, Brother.” Kith’s voice came to Sithas softly, and he turned back.

They clasped hands, and then Sithas leaned forward to embrace his brother.

“Don’t run off on me,” he told Kith, with a wry smile.

An hour later, he was past the water hole, where he had stopped to refill his skin. Now the pass loomed before him like an icy palisade – the castle wall of some unimaginably monstrous giant. Carefully, still some distance away from the ascent, he selected a route up the slope. He stopped to rest several times before reaching the base, but before noon, he began the rugged climb.

All the time he remained conscious of Kith-Kanan’s eyes on his back. He looked behind him occasionally, until his brother became a faint speck on the dark mountain wall. Before he started up the pass, he waved and saw a tiny flicker of motion from the ledge as Kith waved back.

The pass, up close, soared upward and away from him like a steep castle wall, steeper than it had looked from the safe distance of their campsite. The base was a massive, sloping pile of talus – great boulders that, over many centuries, had been pried loose by frost or water to tumble and crash down the mountainside. Now they teetered precariously on top of each other, and powdery snow filled the gaps between them.

Sithas strung his bow across his back, next to his sword. His cloak he removed and tied around his waist, hoping to maintain full freedom of movement.

He picked his way up the talus slope, stepping from rock to rock only after testing each foothold for security. Once several rocks tumbled away beneath him, and he sprang aside just in time. Always he gained altitude, pulling himself up the sheer face with his leather-gloved hands. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and for a moment, he wondered how, in the midst of this snow-swept landscape, could he get so Abyss-cursed hot? Then a swirl of icy wind struck him, penetrating his damp tunic and leggings and bringing an instant shiver to his bones.

Soon he reached the top. Here he encountered long stretches of loose scree, small stones that seemed to slip and slide beneath each footfall, carrying him backward four feet for every five of progress.

Kith-Kanan, of course, had been right. He was always right! His brother knew his way around in country like this, knew how to survive and even how to move and explore, to hunt and find shelter.

Why couldn’t it have been Sithas to suffer the crippling injury? A healthy Kith-Kanan would have been able to care for both of them, Sithas knew.

Meanwhile, he wrestled with overwhelming despair and hopelessness, and he was not yet out of sight of their base camp!

Shaking off his self-pity, Sithas worked his way sideways, toward steeper, but more solid, shoulders of bedrock. Once his feet slipped away, and he tumbled twenty or thirty feet down the slope, only stopping himself by digging his hands and feet into the loose surface. Cursing, he checked his weapons, relieved to find them intact. Finally he reached a solid rock, with a small shelf shaped much like a chair, where he collapsed in exhaustion.

A quick look upward showed that he had made it perhaps a quarter of the way up the slope. At this rate, he would be stranded here at nightfall, a prospect that terrified him more than he wanted to contemplate.

Resolutely he started upward again, this time climbing along rough outcrops of rock. After only a few moments, he realized that this was by far the easiest climbing yet, and his spirits rose rapidly.

Stepping upward in long strides, he relished a new sense of accomplishment.

The valley floor fell away below him; the heavens – and more mountains – beckoned from above. He no longer felt the need for rest. Instead, the climb seemed to energize him.

By midafternoon, he had neared the top of the pass, and here the route narrowed challengingly. Two huge boulders teetered on the slope, with but a narrow crack of daylight between them. One, or both, could very easily roll free, carrying him back down the mountainside if they didn’t crush him between them first.

No other route presented itself. To either side of the massive rocks, sheer cliffs soared upward to the pinnacles of the two mountains. The only way through the pass lay between those two precarious boulders.

He didn’t hesitate. He approached the rocks and saw that the gap was wide enough to allow him to pass – just barely. He entered the aperture, climbing upward across loose rock.

Suddenly the ground beneath his feet slipped away, and his heart lurched. He felt one of the huge boulders shift with a menacing rumble. The rock walls to either side of him pressed closer, narrowing by an inch or so. Then the rock seemed to settle into place, and he felt no more movement.

With a quick burst of speed, he darted upward, scrambling out of the narrow passage before the rocks could budge again. His momentum carried him farther up the last hundred yards of so of the ascent until finally he stood upon the summit of the pass.

Trees! He saw patches of green among the snowfields, far, far below. Trees, which meant wood, which meant fire! The slope before him, while steep and long, was nowhere near as grueling as the one he had just climbed. He glanced over his left shoulder at the sun, estimating two remaining hours of daylight.

It would have to be enough. He would have a fire tonight, he vowed to himself.

He plunged recklessly downward, sometimes riding a small, tumbling pillow of snow, at other times leaping through great drifts to soft landings ten or fifteen feet below. Exhausted, sweat-soaked, and bone-weary, he finally reached a clump of gnarled cedars far down in the basin. Now, at last, his spirits soared. He used the last illumination of daylight to gather all of the dead limbs he could find. He piled the firewood before an unusually thick trio of evergreens, where he had decided to make his camp.

A mere touch of his steel dagger to the flint he carried in his belt-pouch brought a satisfactory spark. The dry wood kindled instantly, and within minutes, he relished the comfort of a crackling blaze.

*

Was this the curse of the gods, thought Kith-Kanan, the punishment for his betrayal of his brother’s marriage? He leaned against the cliff wall and shut his eyes, wincing not in pain but in guilt. Why couldn’t he have simply died? That would have made things so much easier. Sithas would have been free to perform the quest instead of worrying about him like a nervous nursemaid worries about a feverish babe.

In truth, Kith-Kanan felt more helpless than a crawling infant, for he didn’t have even that much mobility.

He had watched Sithas make his way up the slope until his twin had disappeared from sight. His brother had moved with grace and power, surprising Kith with the speed of his ascent.

But as long as Kith-Kanan lay here upon this ledge, he knew Sithas would be tied to this location by their bond of brotherhood. He would explore their immediate surroundings, perhaps, but would never bring himself to travel far beyond.

All because I’m so damned stupid! Kith railed at himself. They had made inadequate preparations for attack! They had both dozed off. Only the sacrifice of brave Arcuballis had given the first warning of the hill giants.

Now his griffon was gone, no doubt dead, and he himself was impossibly crippled. Sithas searched alone and on foot. It seemed inevitable to Kith-Kanan that their quest would be a failure.

*

Sithas dried his clothes and boots, every stitch of which had been soaked by sweat or melting snow, by the crackling fire. It brightened his night, driving back the high mountain darkness that had previously stretched to infinity on all sides, and it warmed his spirits in a way that he wouldn’t have thought possible a few hours earlier. The fire spoke to him with a soothing voice, and it danced for him in sultry allure. It was like a companion, one who could listen to his thoughts and give him pleasure. And finally the fire allowed him to cook a strip of his frozen meat.

That morsel, seared for a few minutes on a forked stick that Sithas plunged into the flames, emerged from the fire covered with ash, blackened and charred on the outside and virtually raw in the center. It was unseasoned, tough, imperfectly preserved … and it was unquestionably the most splendid meal that the elf had ever eaten in his life.

The three pines served as a backdrop to his campsite. Sithas scraped away the small amount of snow here and cleared for himself a soft bed of pine needles. He stoked the fire until he had to back away from the blazing heat.

That night he slept for a few hours, and then awoke to fuel his fire. A mountainous pile of coals radiated heat, and the ground provided a soft and comfortable cushion until the coming of dawn.

Sithas arose slowly, reluctant to break the reverie of warmth and comfort. He cooked another piece of meat, more patiently this time, for breakfast. By the time he finished, sunlight was bathing the bowl-shaped depression around him in its brilliant light. He had made a decision.

He would bring Kith-Kanan to this valley. He didn’t know how yet, but he was convinced that this was the best way to insure his brother’s recovery.

His course plotted, he gathered up his few possessions and lashed them to his body. Next he took several minutes to gather a stack of firewood – light, sun-dried logs that would burn steadily. He trimmed the twigs off of these so that he could bundle them tightly together. This bundle he then lashed to his back.

Finally he turned his face toward the pass. The slope before him still lay in shadow, as it would for most of the day. Retracing his tracks of the previous afternoon, he forced his way through the deep snow, back toward the summit of the pass.

It took him all morning, but finally he reached the summit. He paused to rest – the climb had been extremely wearying – and sought out the speck of color that he knew would mark Kith-Kanan’s presence on the ledge in the distance. He had to squint, for the sunlight reflecting from the snow-filled bowl brutally assaulted his eyes.

He couldn’t see the ledge, though he recognized the water hole where he had collected their drinking water. What was that? He saw movement near the stream, and for a moment, he wondered if the sheep had returned. His eyes adjusted to the brightness, and he understood that these could not be sheep. Large humanoid shapes lumbered through the snow. Shaggy fur seemed to cover them in patches, but the “fur” proved to be cloaks cast over broad shoulders.

They moved in single file, some ten or twelve of them, as they crossed the valley floor, taking no notice of the depth of the snow.

With a sickening realization, Sithas understood what was happening: The hill giants had returned, and they were making their way toward Kith-Kanan.

Chapter 14

IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING

Sithas studied the hill giant that led the column of the brutes, perhaps two miles away and a thousand feet below him. The monster gestured to its fellows, pointing upward. Not toward Sithas, the elf realized, but toward … the ledge! His brother’s camp! The dozen giants trudged through the snow of the valley floor, making their way in that direction.

Sithas tried to spot his twin, but the distance was too great. Wait … there!

Kith-Kanan, he realized, must also have seen the giants, for the wounded elf had pulled a dark cloak over himself and was now pressed against the far wall of the ledge. His camouflage seemed effective and would make him virtually invisible from below as the giants headed toward the cliff.

The column of giants waded the stream. The one in the lead gestured again, this time indicating the path in the snow that Sithas had made in his travels back and forth for water. Another giant indicated a different track, the one made by Sithas on the previous day.

That slight gesture gave him a desperate idea. He acted quickly, casting around until his eyes fell upon a medium-sized boulder resting in the summit of the pass and cracked loose from the bedrock below. Seizing it in both of his hands, grunting from the exertion, he lifted the stone over his head. The last of the giants had crossed the stream, and now the file of huge, grotesque creatures was nearing the cliff wall.

Sithas pitched the boulder as hard and as far as he could. The rock plummeted down the steep, rock-strewn pass. Then it hit, crashing into another boulder with a sharp report before bouncing and smashing again and again down the mountain pass, Breathlessly Sithas watched the giants. They had to hear the commotion!

Indeed they did. Suddenly the twelve monsters whirled around in surprise.

Sithas kicked another rock, and that one too clattered down the pass, rolling between the two huge boulders that he had slipped between on the previous day’s climb.

Now the beasts halted, staring upward. Breathlessly Sithas waited.

It worked! He saw the first giant gesturing wildly, pointing toward the summit of the pass, toward Sithas! Kith-Kanan was left behind as the entire band of the great brutes turned and broke into a lumbering trot, pursuing the elf they probably thought they had “discovered” trying to sneak through the pass.

Sithas watched them advance toward him. They plunged through the deep snow in giant strides, each stride taking them farther from Kith-Kanan. Sithas wondered if his brother was watching, if he had seen the clever diversion created by his twin. He lay still, peering around a boulder as the monsters approached the bottom of the pass.

Now what could he do? The giants had almost reached the base of the pass. He looked behind him. Everywhere the valley was blanketed by deep snow.

Wherever he went, he would leave a trail so obvious that even the thick-witted hill giants would have no difficulty in following him.

His attention returned to the immediate problem. He saw, with sharp panic, that the giants had disappeared from view. Moments later he understood. They were so close to the pass now that the steepness of the slope blocked his vision.

His head seemed fogged by fear, his body tensed with the anticipation of combat. The thought almost brought a smile to his lips. The prospect of facing a dozen giants with his puny sword struck him as ludicrous indeed! Yet by the same token, that prospect seemed inevitable, so that his amusement quickly gave way to stark terror.

Carefully he crept forward and looked down the pass. All he saw were the two monstrous boulders that had bracketed his ascent of the pass on the day before. As yet there was no sign of the giants.

Should he confront them at those rocks? No more than one at a time could pass through the narrow aperture. Still, with a brutally honest assessment of his own fighting prowess, he knew that one of them was all it would take to squash his skull like an eggshell. Also, he remembered the precarious balance of those boulders. Indeed, one of them had shifted several inches merely from the weight of his touch.

That recollection gave him an idea. The elf checked his longsword, which was lashed securely to his back. Quickly he unlashed the bundle of firewood and dropped the sticks unceremoniously to the ground. He hefted the longest one, which was about as long as his leg but no thicker than his arm – still, it would have to do.

Without pausing to consider, Sithas, in a running crouch, crossed through the saddle and started down the slope toward the two rocks. He could see several of the giants through the crack now, and realized with alarm that they were nearly halfway up the steep-sided pass.

In a slide of tumbling scree, Sithas crashed into one of the boulders and felt it lurch beneath his weight. But then it settled back into its place, and he couldn’t force it to move farther. Turning to the second rock, he pushed and heaved at it and was rewarded by a fractional shifting of its massive bulk. However, it, too, seemed to be nestled in a comfortable spot and would not move any farther.

Desperately Sithas slid downward through the crack between the boulders. The elf reached beneath the base of the one he judged to be the loosest and began to dig and chop with his piece of firewood.

He pried a large stone loose, and it skittered down the slope. Immediately he began prying at a different rock. A bellow of surprise reached him from below, and he knew that he didn’t have much time. He didn’t look behind him. Instead, he scrambled back upward between the rocks. He pitched his body against the rock he had worked so hard to loosen and was rewarded by a slight teetering. Then a shower of gravel sprayed from beneath it to tumble into the faces of the approaching giants.

The leader of the monsters bellowed again. The creature was a bare fifty yards below Sithas now and bounding upward with astonishing speed.

After one last, futile push at the rock, Sithas knew that he would have to abandon that plan. His time had run out. Drawing his sword, he dropped through the narrow crack again, prepared to meet the first giant at the mouth of the opening. Grimly he resolved to draw as much blood as possible before he perished.

The beast came toward him, its face split by a garish caricature of a grin. Sithas saw the tiny bloodshot eyes and the stubs of teeth jutting like tusks from its gums. Its huge lips flapped with excitement as the brute prepared to squash the life from this impudent elf.

The thing held one of those monstrous clubs such as the giants had employed in their earlier attack. Now that weapon lashed outward, but Sithas ducked back into the niche, feeling the rock tremble next to him from the force of the blow. He darted outward and stabbed quickly with his steel blade. A sense of cruel delight flared within him as the weapon scored a bloody gash on the giant’s forehead.

With a cry of animal rage, the giant lunged upward, dropping its club and reaching with massive paws toward Sithas’s legs. The elf skipped backward, scrambling up and away. As he did, he stabbed downward, driving his blade clear through the monster’s hand.

Howling in pain, the giant twisted away, shrinking back down the slope to clutch its bleeding extremity. Sithas had no time to reconnoiter, however. The next monster had already caught up. This one had apparently learned from his comrade’s errors, for it thrust its heavy club into the crack and stayed out of reach.

Sithas twisted away with a curse as the crude weapon nearly crushed his left wrist. The giant reached in, and Sithas scrambled upward. But then a loose patch of scree caused him to lose his footing, and he slipped downward toward that leering, hate-filled face.

He saw the monstrous lips spread in a leering grin, darkened stubs of ivory teeth ready to tear at his flesh. Sithas kicked out, and his boot cracked into the beast’s huge, wart-covered nose.

Desperately Sithas kicked again, pushing himself upward and catching one boot on an outcrop of the rock wall beside him. The giant reached up to catch him, but the elf remained just out of his reach, barely a foot or so above him.

With determination, the broad-shouldered brute pressed into the narrow crack between the boulders. The force of his body pushed the stones outward slightly.

Yet that seemed to be enough. The monster’s hand clutched Sithas’s foot. Even as the elf kicked and flailed frantically, one of the rocks teetered precariously on the brink of a fall.

The Speaker of the Stars braced his back against one of the rocks and pressed both of his boots against the other. Calling for the blessings of every god he could think of, he pushed outward, straining and gasping to move the monstrous weight.

Slowly, almost gradually, the huge boulder toppled forward. The giant stared upward, his beady eyes nearly bulging out of his skull as the huge load slid forward, then began to roll downward. Tons of rock crushed the life from the brute as the boulder broke free.

His foothold suddenly gone, Sithas slid downward in the wake of the crashing stone. He felt a sickening crunch in the earth and looked up to see the other rock also break free to crash toward the valley floor a thousand feet below. Desperately the elf sprang to one side, feeling the ground shake as the huge stone tumbled past him.

The sounds of the rockslide grew and echoed, seeming to shake the bedrock of the world. Sithas pressed his face into the ground, trying to cling with his hands as the entire wall of the pass fell away. The thunderous volume overwhelmed him, and he expected to be swept away at any second.

But now the gods looked kindly on the Speaker of the Stars, and though the cliff wall a scant twelve inches from his hand plunged below, the rock to which Sithas clung remained fixed, miraculously, to the ridge.

The world crashed and surged around Sithas for what seemed like hours, though in reality it was no more than a few minutes. When he finally opened his eyes, blinking away the dust and grime, he looked down at a scene of complete devastation.

A dust cloud had settled across the formerly pristine snowfields, casting the entire valley in a dirty gray hue. The surface of the cliff gaped like a fresh scar where scree and talus, even great chunks of bedrock, had torn away. He could see none of the twelve giants, but it seemed inconceivable that any of them could have lived through that massive, crushing avalanche.

The pass was now even steeper than it had been when he climbed it, but the entire surface was clear of snow, and the rock that remained was solid mountain. Thus he had little difficulty in picking his way painstakingly down the thousand feet of descent to the valley floor.

Near the bottom, he came upon the body of one of the giants. The creature was half-buried in rubble and covered with dust.

Sithas stepped carefully along the slope, using handholds to maintain his balance, until he reached the motionless body of the giant. The creature hung over a sharp outcrop of rock, looking like a rag doll that someone had casually cast aside. When the elf reached the monster, he examined it more closely.

He saw that it wore boots of heavy fur and a tunic of bearskin. The creature’s beard was long but sparsely grown, adding to the straggled and unkempt appearance of its face. The great mouth hung slackly open, and its long, floppy tongue protruded. Several broken teeth studded its gums alongside a single well-formed tusk of ivory in front. Sithas found himself feeling a spontaneous reaction of compassion as he looked at the pathetic visage.

His reaction changed instantly to alarm when the giant moved, reaching out with one trunk-like arm toward him. The elf stepped nervously backward, his longsword in his hand.

Then the giant groaned, smacking his lips and snorting in discomfort before finally forcing open the lid of one blank, bloodshot eye. The eye stared straight at the elf.

Sithas froze. His instincts, as soon as the beast had moved, had urged him to drive his keen steel blade into the creature’s throat or its heart.

However, some inner emotion, surprising the elf with its strong compulsion, had held his hand. The blade remained poised before the giant’s face, a foot from the end of its blunt and swollen nose, but Sithas didn’t drive it home. Instead, he studied the creature as it opened its other eye. The two orbs crossed ludicrously as it appeared to study the keen steel so close to its face. Slowly the bloodshot orbs came into focus. Sithas sensed the giant tensing, and he knew that he should slay it, if it wasn’t already too late! Misgivings assailed him.

Still he held firm. The giant scowled, still trying to understand what had happened, what was going on. Finally the realization came, with a reaction that took Sithas completely by surprise. The monster yelped – a high-pitched gasp of fright – and tried to squirm backward away from the elf and the weapon.

A large boulder blocked its retreat, and the beast cowered against the rock, raising its massive fists as if to ward away a blow. Sithas took a step forward, and when the beast cried out again, he lowered his blade, bemused by the strange behavior.

Sithas made a casual gesture with his sword. The giant raised its hands to protect its face and grunted something in a crude tongue. Again Sithas was struck by the one perfect tooth bobbing up and down amongst the otherwise ragged gums.

The problem remained of what to do with it. Letting the brute just wander away seemed like an unacceptable risk. Yet Sithas couldn’t kill it out of hand, now that it cowered and gibbered at him. It didn’t seem like much of a threat anymore, despite its huge size.

“Hey, One-Tooth. Stand up!” The elf gestured with his blade, and after several moments, the giant climbed hesitantly to its feet.

The creature loomed ten feet or more tall, with a barrel-sized chest and stout, sinew-lined limbs. One-Tooth gaped pathetically at Sithas as the elf nodded, pleased. He gestured again with his sword, this time down the pass, toward the valley.

“Come on, you lead the way,” he instructed the giant. They started down the mountain, with Sithas keeping his sword ready.

But One-tooth seemed perfectly content to shuffle along ahead of the elf. On the ground, Sithas found it a great boon to follow in the footsteps of the giant, rather than break his own trail through the snow. Following an elaborate pantomime, he showed One-Tooth how to drag his feet when he walked, thus making a deeper and smoother path for the elf.

He directed the giant toward the ledge where Kith-Kanan lay helpless. At the bottom, before they picked their way up the steep, treacherous trail, Sithas turned back to the giant.

“I want you to carry him,” he explained. He cradled his arms as if he was carrying an infant and pointed to the ledge above them. “Do you understand?”

The giant squinted at the elf, his eyes shrinking to tiny dots of bloodshot concentration. He looked upward.

Then his eyes widened, as if someone had just opened the shutters to a dark, little-used room. His mouth gaped happily, and the tooth bobbed up and down in enthusiastic comprehension.

“I hope so,” Sithas muttered, not entirely confident about what he was doing.

Now the elf led the way, working his way up the narrow trail until he reached the ledge that had sequestered his brother.

“Well done, Brother!” Kith-Kanan was sitting upright, his back against the cliff wall and his face creased by a grin of amazed delight. “I saw them coming, and I figured that was the end!”

“That thought crossed my mind as well,” admitted Sithas.

Kith looked at him with an admiring expression Sithas had never seen in his brother’s eyes before. “You could have been killed, you know!”

Sithas laughed self-consciously, feeling a warm sense of pride. “I can’t let you have all the fun.”

Kith smiled, his eyes shining. “Thanks, Brother!” Clearing his throat, he nodded at One-Tooth. “But what is this – a prisoner or friend? And what idea do you have now?”

“We’re going to the next valley,” Sithas replied. “I couldn’t find a horse, so you’ll have to ride a giant!”

Chapter 15

WINTER,
IN THE ARMY OF ERGOTH

The rains beat across a sea of canvas, a drumming, monotonous cadence that marked time during winter on the plains. Gray skies stretched over the brown land, encloaked by air that changed from fog to downpour to icy mist.

If only it would freeze! This was the wish of every soldier in the army who had to stand guard, conduct drills, or make the arduous treks to distant woods for firewood or lumber. A hard frost would solidify the viscous earth that now churned underfoot, miring wagon wheels and making the simple act of walking an exhaustive struggle.

Sentries stood shivering on guard duty around the ring of the great human encampment. The great bulk of Sithelbec was practically invisible in the gray anonymity of the twilit gloom. The fortress walls loomed strong; they had been tested at the cost of more than a thousand men during recent months.

Darkness came like a lowering curtain, and the camp became still and silent, broken only by the fires that dotted the darkness. Even these blazes were few, for all sources of firewood within ten miles of the camp had already been picked clean.

Amid this darkness, an even darker figure moved. General Giarna stalked toward the command tent of High General Barnet. Trailing him, trying to control her terror, followed Suzine.

She didn’t want to be here. Never before had she seen General Giarna as menacing as he seemed tonight. He had summoned her without explanation, his eyes distant … and hungry. It was as if he barely knew that she was present, so intent were his thoughts on something else.

Now she understood that his victim was to be Barnet.

General Giarna reached the high general’s tent and flung aside the canvas flap, boldly entering. Suzine, more cautiously, came behind him.

Barnet had been expecting company, for he stood facing the door, his hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword. The three of them were alone in the dim enclosure. One lamp sputtered on a battered wooden table, and rain seeped through the waterlogged roof and sides of the tent.

“The usurper dares to challenge his master?” sneered the white-haired Barnet, but his voice was not as forceful as his words.

“Master?” The black-armored general’s voice was heavy with scorn. His eyes remained vacant, and focused on something very far away. “You are a failure – and your time is up, old man!”

“Bastard!” Barnet reacted with surprising quickness, given his age. In one smooth movement, his blade hissed from its scabbard and lashed toward the younger man’s face.

General Giarna was quicker. He raised one hand, encased in its black steel gauntlet. The blade met the gauntlet at the wrist, a powerful blow that ought to have chopped through the armor and sliced off the general’s hand.

Instead, the sword shattered into a shower of silver splinters. Barnet, still holding the useless hilt, gaped at the taller Giarna and stepped involuntarily backward.

Suzine groaned in terror. Some unbelievably horrible power pulsed in the room, a thing that she sensed on a deeper level than sight or smell or touch.

Her knees grew weak beneath her, but somehow she forced herself to stand.

She knew that Giarna wanted her to watch, for this was to be a lesson for her as much as a punishment for Barnet.

The old man squealed – a pathetic, whimpering sound – as he stared at something in the dark eyes of his nemesis. Giarna’s hands, cloaked in the shiny black steel, grasped Barnet around the neck, and the high general’s sounds faded into strangled gasps and coughs.

Barnet’s face expanded to a circle of horror. His tongue protruded, and his jaw flexed soundlessly. His skin grew red – bright red, like a crimson rose, thought Suzine. Then the man’s face darkened to a bluish, then ashen, gray.

Finally, as if his corpse was being seared by a hot fire, Barnet turned black.

His face ceased to bulge, slowly shrinking until the skin pressed tight around the clear outlines of his skull. His lips stretched backward, and then split and dried into mummified husks.

His hands, Suzine saw, had become veritable claws, each an outline of white bone, with bare shreds of skin and fingernails clinging to the ghastly skeleton.

Giarna cast the corpse aside, and it settled slowly to the floor, like an empty gunny sack that catches the undercurrents of air as it floats downward. When the general finally turned back to Suzine, she gasped in mindless dread. He stood taller now. His skin was bright, flushed. But his eyes were his most frightening aspect, for now they fixed upon her with a clear and deadly glow.

*

Later, Suzine stared into her mirror, despairing. Though it might show ten thousand signs, to her it was still devoid of that which meant all to her. She no longer knew if Kith-Kanan was even alive, so far distant had he flown. In the ten days since General Giarna had slain Barnet, the army camp had been driven into furious activity. An array of great stone-casting catapults took shape along the lines. Building the huge wooden machines was slow work, but by the end of winter, twoscore of the war machines would be ready to rain their destruction upon Sithelbec.

A hard ground freeze had occurred during the days immediately following the brutal murder, and this had eliminated the mud that had impeded all activity.

Now great parties of human riders scoured the surrounding plains, and the few bands of Wildrunners outside Sithelbec’s walls had been eliminated or driven to the shelter of the deepest forests.

Wearily Suzine turned her thoughts to her uncle, Emperor Quivalin Soth V.

The mirror combed the expanse of the frozen plain to the west, and soon she found what Giarna had directed her to seek: the emperor’s great carriage, escorted by four thousand of his most loyal knights, was trundling closer to the camp.

She went to seek her commander and found him belaboring the unfortunate captains of a team sent to bring lumber from a patch of forest some dozen miles away.

“Double the size of your force if you need to!” snarled General Giarna, while six battle-scarred officers trembled before him. “But bring me the wood by tomorrow! Work on the catapults must cease until we get those timbers!”

“Sir,” ventured the boldest, “it’s the horses! We drive them until near collapse. Then they must rest! It takes two days to make the trip.”

“Drive them until they collapse, then – or perhaps you consider horseflesh to be more valuable than your own?”

“No, General!” Badly shaken, the captains left to organize another, larger, lumbering expedition.

“What have you learned?” General Giarna whirled upon Suzine, fixing her with his penetrating stare.

For a moment, Suzine looked at him, trying to banish her trembling. The Boy General reminded her, for the first time in a long time, of the vibrant and energetic officer she had first met, for whom she had once developed an infatuation. What did the death of Barnet have to do with this? In some vile way, it seemed to Suzine that the man had consumed the life force of the other, devoured his rival, and found the deed somehow invigorating.

“The emperor will arrive tomorrow,” she reported. “He makes good time, now that the ground is frozen.”

“Splendid.” The general’s mind, she could see, was already preoccupied with something else, for he turned that sharp stare toward the bastion of Sithelbec.

*

If Emperor Quivalin noticed any dark change in General Giarna, he didn’t say anything to Suzine. His carriage had rolled into the camp to the cheers of more than a hundred thousand of his soldiers. The great procession rumbled around the full circumference of the circular deployments before arriving at the tent where the Boy General kept his headquarters.

The two men conferred within the tent for several hours before the ruler and the commander emerged, side by side, to address the troops.

“I have appointed General Giarna as High General of the Army,” announced Quivalin, to the cheers of his men, “following the unfortunate demise of former High General Barnet.

“He has my full confidence, as do you all.” More cheers. “I feel certain that, with the coming of spring, your force will carry the walls of the elven fortress and reduce their defenses to ashes! For the glory of Ergoth, you will prevail!”

Adulation rose from the troops, who surged forward to get a close look at the mighty ruler. A sweeping stare from their general, however, held them in their tracks. A slow, reluctant silence fell over the mass of warriors.

“The collapse of my predecessor, due to exhaustion, was symptomatic of the sluggishness that previously pervaded this entire army – a laxness that allowed our enemy to reach its fortress months ago,” said General Giarna. His voice was level and low, yet it seemed to carry more ominous power than the emperor’s loud exhortations.

Murmurs of discontent rose in many thousands of throats. Barnet had been a popular leader, and his death hadn’t been satisfactorily explained to the men.

Yet the stark fear they felt for the Boy General prevented anyone from audibly muttering open displeasure.

“Our emperor informs me that additional troops will be joining us, a contingent of dwarves from the Theiwar Clan of Thorbardin. They are skilled miners and will be put to work digging excavations beneath the walls of the enemy defenses.

“Those of you who are not engaged in preparations for the attack will begin tomorrow a vigorous program of training. When the time comes to attack, you will be ready! And for the glory of our emperor, you will succeed!”

Chapter 16

TWO WEEKS LATER,
EARLY WINTER

The firelight reflected from the walls of the cave like dancing sprites, weaving patterns of warmth and comfort. A haunch of venison sizzled on a spit over the coals, while Sithas’s cloak and leggings dried on a makeshift rack.

“No tenderloin of steer ever tasted so sweet or lay so sumptuously on the palate,” announced Kith-Kanan, with an approving smack of his lips. He reached forward and sliced another hot strip from the meat that slow-roasted above the coals.

Sithas looked at his brother, his eyes shining with pride. Unlike the sheep, which he admitted had been slain by dumb luck as much as anything, he had stalked this deer through the woods, lying in wait for long, chilly hours, until the timid creature had worked its way into bow range. He had aimed carefully and brought the animal down with one shot to the neck.

“I have to agree,” Sithas allowed as he finished his own piece. He, too, carved another strip for eating. Then he cut several other juicy morsels, piling them on a flat stone that served as a platter, before lifting the spit from the fire.

He turned to the mouth of the shallow cave, where winter’s darkness closed in. “Hey, One-Tooth.” he called. “Dinner time!”

The giant’s round face, split by his characteristic massive grin, appeared.

One-Tooth squinted before reaching his massive paw into the cave. His eyes lit up expectantly as Sithas handed him the spit.

“Careful – it’s hot. Eat hearty, my friend.” Sithas watched in amusement as the giant, who had learned several words of the common tongue – “hot” being high on the list – picked tentatively at the dripping meat.

“Amazing how friendly he got, once we started feeding him,” remarked Kith-Kanan.

Indeed, once the hill giant had satisfied himself that the elf wasn’t going to slay him, One-Tooth had become an enthusiastic helper. He had carried Kith down the narrow trail from the ledge with all the care that a mother shows to her firstborn babe. The weight of the injured elf hadn’t seemed to slow the hill giant at all as Sithas led him back over the steep pass and into this valley.

The trip had been hard on Kith-Kanan, with each step jarring his injured leg, but he had borne the punishment in silence. Indeed, he had been amazed and delighted at the degree of control with which Sithas had seized the reins of their expedition.

It had taken another day of searching, but finally the Speaker of the Stars had discovered this shallow cave, its entrance partially screened by boulders and brush. Lying in the overhang of a rock-walled riverbank, the cave itself was dry and spacious, albeit not so spacious that the giant didn’t have to remain outside. A small stream flowed within a dozen feet of its mouth, assuring a plentiful supply of water.

Now that they had reached this forested valley, Sithas had been able to rig a splint for Kith-Kanan’s wound.

Nevertheless, it galled the leader of the Wildrunners, who had always handled his own problems, to sit here in forced immobility while his brother, the Speaker of the Stars, did the hunting, wood-gathering, and exploration, as well as the simpler jobs like fire-tending and cooking.

“This is truly amazing, Sithas,” Kith said, indicating their rude shelter. “All the comforts of home.”

The cave was shallow, perhaps twenty feet deep, with a ceiling that rose almost five feet. Several dense clumps of pines and cedars grew within easy walking distance.

“Comforts,” Sithas agreed. “And even a palace guard!

One-Tooth looked attentive, sensing that they were talking about him. He grinned again, though the juice dribbling from his huge lips made the effect rather grotesque.

“I have to admit, when you first told me that I was going to ride a giant, I thought the cold had penetrated a little too far between your ears. But it worked!”

They had set up a permanent camp here, agreeing tacitly between them that without Arcuballis they were stuck in these mountains at least for the duration of the winter.

Of course, they were haunted by awareness of the distant war. They had discussed the nature of Sithelbec’s defenses and concluded that the humans probably wouldn’t be able to launch an effective assault before summer. The stout walls ought to stand against a long barrage of catapult attacks, and the hard earth would make tunneling operations difficult and time-consuming. All they could do now was wait and hope.

Sithas had gathered huge piles of pine boughs, which made fairly comfortable beds. A fire built at the mouth of the cave sent its smoke billowing outward, but radiated its impressive heat throughout their shelter. It made the cave into a very pleasant shelter, and – with the presence of One-Tooth – Sithas no longer feared for his brother’s safety if he had to be left alone. They both knew that soon enough, Sithas would have to set out on foot to seek the griffons.

Now they sat in silence, sharing a sense of well-being that was quite extraordinary, given the circumstances. They had shelter and warmth, and now they even had extra food! Lazily Sithas rose and checked his boots, careful not to singe their fur-covered surface. He turned them slightly to warm a different part of their soggy surface. Immediately steam began to arise from the soaked leather. He returned to his spot and flopped down on his own cloak. He looked at his brother, and Kith-Kanan sensed that he wanted to say something.

“I think you’ve got enough food here to last you for a while,” Sithas began. “I’m going to search for the griffons.”

Kith nodded. “Despite my frustration with this —” he indicated his leg “— I think that’s the only thing to do.”

“We’re near the heart of the range,” Sithas continued, with a nod. “I figure that I can head out in one direction, make a thorough search, and get back here within a week or ten days. Even with the deep snow, I’ll be able to make some progress. I’ll stop back and check on you and let you know what I’ve found. If it’s nothing, I’ll head out in a different direction after that.”

“Sounds like a reasonable plan,” Kith-Kanan agreed. “You’ll take the scroll from Vedvedsica, of course.”

Sithas had planned on this. “Yes. If I find the griffons, I’ll try to get close enough to use the spell.”

His brother looked at him steadily. Kith-Kanan’s face showed an expression Sithas was not accustomed to. The injured elf spoke. “Let me do something before you go. It might help on your journey.”

“What?”

Kith wouldn’t explain, instead requesting that his brother bring him numerous supple pine branches – still green, unlike the dried sticks they used for firewood.

“The best ones will be about as big around as your thumb and as long as possible.”

“Why? What do you want them for?”

His brother acted mysterious, but Sithas willingly gathered the wood as soon as daylight illuminated the valley. He spent the rest of the day gathering provisions for the first leg of his trek, checking his own equipment, and stealing sidelong glances at his brother. Kith-Kanan pretended to ignore him, instead whittling away at the pine branches, weaving them into a tight pattern, even pulling threads from his woolen cloak to lash the sticks together firmly.

Toward sunset, he finally held the finished creations up for Sithas’s inspection. He had made two flat objects, oval in shape and nearly three feet long by a foot wide. The sticks had been woven back and forth into a grid pattern.

“Wonderful, Kith – simply amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them! But … what are they?”

Kith-Kanan smiled smugly. “I learned about them during that winter I spent in the Wildwood.” For a moment, his smile tightened. He couldn’t remember that time without thinking of Anaya, of the bliss they had shared, and of the strange fate that had claimed her. He blinked and went on. “They’re called ‘snowshoes’.”

Instantly Sithas saw the application. “I lash these to my boots, right?” he guessed. “And then walk around, leaving footprints in the snow like a giant?”

“You’ll be surprised, I promise. They’ll let you walk on top of the snow, even deep powder.”

Indeed, Sithas wasted no time pulling on his boots and affixing the snowshoes to them with several straps Kith had created by tearing a strip from one of their cloaks. He tripped and sprawled headlong as he left the cave but quickly dusted himself off and started into the woods on a test walk.

Though the snowshoes felt somewhat awkward on his feet and forced him to walk with an unusually wide-spread gait, he trotted and marched and plodded through the woods for nearly an hour before returning to the cave.

“Big feet!” One-Tooth greeted him outside, where he had left the giant.

“Good feet!” Sithas replied, reaching up to give the giant a friendly clap on the arm.

Kith awaited him expectantly.

“They’re fantastic! I can’t believe the difference they make!”

Kith was forced to admit, as he looked at his exhilarated brother, that Sithas no longer seemed to need the assistance of anyone to cope with the rigors of the high mountain winter.

Determined to begin his quest well rested, Sithas tried to force himself to sleep. But though he closed his eyes, his mind remained alert. It leaped from fear to hope to anticipation in a chaotic whirling dance that kept him wide awake as the hours drifted past. He heard One-Tooth snoring at the cave mouth and saw Kith slumbering peacefully on the other side of the fire.

Finally, past midnight, Sithas slept. And when he did, his dreams were rich and bright, full of blue skies swarming with griffons.

*

Yellow eyes gleamed in the woods, staring at the fading fire in the mouth of the cave. The dire wolf crept closer, suppressing the urge to growl.

The creature saw and smelled the hill giant slumbering at the mouth of the cave. Though the savage canine was huge – the size of a pony, weighing more than three hundred pounds – it feared to attack the larger hill giant.

Too, the fire gave it pause. It had been burned once before, and remembered well the terrifying touch of flame.

Silently the wolf slinked back into the woods. When it was safely out of hearing of the cave, it broke into a patient lope, easily moving atop the snow.

But there was food in the cave. During the lean winter months, fresh meat was a rare prize in this mountain fastness. The wolf would remember, and as it roamed the valleys, it would meet others of its kind. Finally, when the pack had gathered, they would return.

*

Sithas’s first expedition, to the west, lasted nearly four weeks. He pressed along snow-swept ridges and through barren, rock-boundaried vales. He saw no life, save for the occasional spoor of the hardy mountain sheep or the flying speck of an eagle soaring in the distance. He traveled alone, having persuaded One-Tooth – only after a most intricate series of contortions, pantomimes, threats, and pleas – to remain behind and guard Kith-Kanan. Each day his solitude seemed to weigh heavier on him and become an oppressive, gnawing despair.

Winds tore at him every day, and as often as not, his world vanished behind a shroud of blowing snow. The days of clear weather that had followed Kith’s injury, he now realized, had been a fortunate aberration in the typical weather patterns of the high mountains. Winter closed in with a fury, shrouding him in snow and hail and ice.

He pressed westward until at last he stood upon a high ridge and saw ground falling to foothills and plains beyond. He would find no mountainous refuge of griffons in this direction. The route he followed back to Kith-Kanan and One-Tooth diverged somewhat from the trail he had taken westward, but this, too, proved fruitless.

He found his brother and the hill giant in good spirits, with a plentiful supply of meat. Though Kith could not yet bear his weight on his leg, the limb seemed to be healing well. Given time, it would regain most of its prior strength.

After a night of warmth and freshly cooked meat, Sithas began his search to the north. This time his quest took even longer, for the Khalkist Range extended far along this axis. After twenty-five days of exploring, however, he saw that he had left the highest summits of the range behind. Though the trail northward was mountainous and the land uninhabited, he could see from his lofty vantage that it lacked the towering, craggy summits that had been so vividly described in Kith-Kanan’s dream. It seemed safe to conclude that the valley of the griffons did not lie farther north.

His return to camp took another ten days and carried him through more lofty, but equally barren, country. The only significant finds he made were several herds of deer. He had stumbled across the creatures by accident and watched them race away, plunging through the deep snow. It was with a sensation approaching abject hopelessness that he plodded over the last ridge and found the camp nestled in its cave and remaining very much as he had left it.

One-Tooth was eager to greet him, and Kith-Kanan looked stronger and healthier, though his leg was still awkwardly splinted. His brother was working on an intricately carved crutch, but as yet he hadn’t tried walking with it.

By now the food supply had begun to run short, so Sithas remained for several days, long enough to stalk and slay a plump doe. The deer’s carcass yielded more meat than either of his previous kills, and when he returned to camp with the doe, he was surprised to find Kith waiting at the cave mouth – standing and waiting.

“Kith! Your leg!” he asked, dropping the deer and stepping quickly to his brother’s side.

“Hurts like all the fires of the Abyss,” Kith grunted, but his teeth, though clenched, forced his mouth into a tight smile. “Still, it can hold me up, with the help of my crutch.”

“Call you Three-Legs now,” observed One-Tooth dryly.

“Fair enough,” Kith agreed, still gritting his teeth.

“I think this calls for a celebration. How about some melted snow and venison?” proposed Sithas.

“Perfect,” Kith-Kanan agreed.

One-Tooth drooled happily, sharing the brothers’ elation. The trio enjoyed an evening of feasting. The giant was the first to tire, and soon he was snoring noisily in his accustomed position outside the mouth of the cave.

“Are you going back out?” Kith asked quietly after long moments of contented silence.

“I have to,” Sithas replied. They both knew that there was no other alternative.

“This is the last chance,” Kith-Kanan observed. “We’ve come up from the south, and now you’ve looked to the north and the west. If the valley doesn’t lie somewhere to the east, we’ll have to face the fact that this whole adventure might have been a costly pipe dream.”

“I’m not prepared to give up yet!” Sithas said, more sharply than he intended. Truthfully, the same suspicions had lurked in his own subconscious for many days. What if he found no sign of the griffons? What if they had to march back to Silvanost on foot, a journey that would take months and couldn’t begin until snowmelt in late spring? And what if they returned, after all this time, empty handed?

So it was that Sithas began his eastward search with a taut determination. He pushed himself harder than ever before, going to reckless lengths to scale sheer passes and traverse lofty, precipitous ridges. The mountains here were the most rugged of any in the range, and any number of times they came very close to claiming the life of the intrepid elf.

Every day Sithas witnessed thundering avalanches. He learned to recognize the overhanging crests, the steep and snow-blanketed heights that gave birth to these crushing snowslides. He identified places where water flowed beneath the snow, gaining drinking water when he needed it but avoiding a potential plunge through the ice that, by soaking him in these woodless heights, would amount to a sentence of death by freezing.

He slept on high ridges, with rocks for his pillow and bed. He excavated snow caves when he could and found that the warmth of these greatly improved his chances of surviving the long, dark nights. But once again he found nothing that would indicate the presence of griffons – indeed, of any living creatures – among these towering crags.

He pressed for two full weeks through the barren vales, climbing rock-studded slopes, dodging avalanches, and searching the skies and the ridges for some sign of his quarry. He pressed forward each day before dawn and searched throughout the hours of daylight until darkness all but blinded him to any spoor that wasn’t directly in front of his nose. Then he slept fitfully, anxious for the coming of daylight so that he could resume his search.

However, he was finally forced to admit defeat and turned back toward the brothers’ camp. A bleak feeling of despair came over him as he made camp on a high ridge. It was as he rearranged some rocks to form his sleeping place that Sithas saw the tracks: like a cat’s, only far bigger, larger than his own hand with the fingers fully outstretched. The rear, feline feet he identified with certainty, and now the nature of the padded forefeet became clear, too. They might have been made by an incredibly huge eagle, but Sithas knew this was not the case. The prints had been made by the great taloned griffon.

*

Kith-Kanan squirmed restlessly on his pine-branch bed. The once-soft branches had been matted into a hard and lumpy mat by more than two months of steady use, and no longer did they provide a pleasant cushion for his body. As he had often done before – indeed, as he did a hundred or a thousand times each day – he cursed the injury that kept him hobbled to this shelter like an invalid. He noticed another sound that disturbed his slumber – a rumble like a leaky bellows in a steel-smelting plant. The noise reverberated throughout the cave.

“Hey, One-Tooth!” Kith snapped. “Wake up!”

Abruptly the sound ceased with a snuffling gurgle, and the giant peered sleepily into the cave.

“Huh?” demanded the monstrous humanoid. “What Three-Legs want now?”

“Stop snoring! I can’t sleep with all the racket!”

“Huh?” One-Tooth squinted at him. “Not snoring!”

“Never mind. Sorry I woke you.” Smiling to himself, the wounded elf shifted his position on the rude mattress and slowly boosted himself to his feet.

“Nice fire.” The giant moved closer to the pile of coals. “Better than village firehole.”

“Where is your village?” asked Kith curiously. The giant had mentioned his small community before.

“In mountains, close to tree lands.”

This didn’t tell Kith much, except that it was at a lower altitude than the valley they now inhabited, a fact that was just as well, considering his brother’s ongoing exploration of the highlands.

“Sleep some more,” grunted the giant, stretching and yawning. His mouth gaped, and the solitary tusk protruded until One-Tooth smacked his lips and closed his eyes.

The giant had made remarkable progress in learning the elven tongue. He was no scintillating conversationalist, of course, but he could communicate with Kith-Kanan on a remarkable number of day-to-day topics.

“Sleep well, friend,” remarked Kith softly. He looked at the slumbering giant with genuine affection, grateful that the fellow had been here during these months of solitude.

Looking outward, he noticed the pale blue of the dawn sky looming behind One-Tooth’s recumbent form.

Damn this leg! Why did he have to suffer an injury now, just when his skills were most needed, when the entire future of the war and of his nation were at stake?

He had regained some limited mobility. He could totter, albeit painfully, around the mouth of the cave, getting water for himself and exercising his limbs. Today, he resolved, he would press far enough to get a few more pine branches for his crude and increasingly uncomfortable bed.

But that was nothing compared to the epic quest undertaken by his brother!

Even as Kith thought about making the cave a little more cozy, his brother was negotiating high mountain ridges and steep, snow-filled valleys, making his camp wherever the sunset found him, pressing forward each day to new vistas.

More than once, Kith had brooded on the fact that Sithas faced great danger in these mountains. Indeed, he could be killed by a fall, or an avalanche, or a band of wolves or giants – by any of countless threats – and Kith-Kanan wouldn’t even know about it until much time had passed and he failed to return.

Growling to himself, Kith limped to the cave mouth and looked over the serene valley. Instead of inspiring mountain scenery, however, all he saw were steep, gray prison walls, walls that seemed likely to hold him here forever.

What was his brother doing now? How fared the search for the griffons?

He limped out into the clear, still air. The sun touched the tips of the peaks around him, yet it would be hours before it reached the camp on the valley floor.

Grimacing with pain, Kith pressed forward. One-Tooth’s forays for wood and water had packed down the snow for a large area around their cave, and the elf crossed the smooth surface with little difficulty.

He reached the edge of the packed snow, stepping into the spring mush and sinking to his knee. He took another step, and another, wincing at the effort it took to move his leg.

Then he froze, motionless, his eyes riveted to the snow before him. His hand reached for a sword that he was not wearing.

The tracks were clear in the soft snow. They must have been made the night before. A pack of huge wolves, perhaps a dozen or more, had run past the cave in the darkness. Luckily he could see no sign of them now as he carefully backed toward the cave.

He remembered the fire they had built the night before and imagined the wolves sidling past, fearful of the flames. Yet he knew, as he studied the silent woods, that sooner or later they would return.

Chapter 17

THE NEXT DAY

Sithas reached upward, pulling himself another eight inches closer to his goal. Sweat beaded upon his forehead, fatigue numbed his arms and legs, and a dizzying expanse of space yawned below him. All of these factors he ignored in his grim determination to reach the crest of the ridge.

The rocky barrier before him loomed high, with sheer sides studded with cracked and jagged outcrops of granite. A month ago, he reflected as he paused to gasp for breath, he would have called the climb impossible. Now it represented merely another obstacle, one that he would treat with respect yet was confident that he would successfully overcome.

High hopes surged in his heart, convincing him to keep on climbing. This had to be the place! The night before, those tracks on the ledge had seemed so clear, such irrefutable proof that the griffons lived somewhere nearby. Now doubts assailed him. Perhaps his mind played tricks on him, and this torturous climb was simply another exercise in futility.

Beyond this steep-walled ridge, he knew, lay a stretch of the Khalkist Mountains that he had not yet explored. The region sprawled, a chaos of ridges, glaciers, and valleys. Finally he pulled himself up over the rocky summit of the divide. He looked into the deep valley beyond, squinting against the bright sunlight. He no longer wore his scarf protectively across his face. Four months of exposure to wind, snow, and sun had given his skin the consistency and toughness of leather.

No movement greeted his eyes, no sign of life in the wide and deep vale. Yet before him – and far, far below – he saw a wide expanse of dark green forest. Amidst these trees, he glimpsed a sparkling reflection that he knew must be a pond or small lake, and unlike any other body of water he had seen for the last two months, this one was unfrozen!

He scrambled over the top of the ridge, only to be confronted by a precipitous descent beyond. Undismayed, he followed the knifelike crest, until at last he found a narrow ravine that led downward at an angle. Quickly, almost recklessly, Sithas slid down the narrow chute. Always he kept his eyes on the heavens, searching for any sign of the magnificent half-lion, half-eagle beasts that he sought.

Would he be able to tame them? He thought of the scroll he had carried during these weeks of searching. When he paused to rest, he removed it and examined its ivory tube. Uncorking the top, he checked to see that the parchment was still curled, well protected, within. From somewhere, a nagging doubt troubled him, and for the first time, he wondered if the enchantment would work. How could mere words, read from such a scroll, have an effect on creatures as proud and free as the griffons? He could only hope that Vedvedsica had spoken the truth.

The ravine provided him good cover and a relatively easy descent that carried him steadily downward for thousands of feet. He moved carefully, taking precautions that his footsteps didn’t trigger any slide of loose rock. And though he saw no sign of his quarry, he wanted to make every effort to ensure that it was he who discovered them, rather than the other way around.

It took Sithas several hours to make the long, tedious descent. Steep walls climbed to his right and left, sometimes so close together that he could reach out his hands and touch each side of the ravine simultaneously. Once he came to a sharp drop-off, some twelve feet straight down. Turning to face the mountain, he lowered himself over the precipice, groping with his feet until he found a secure hold. Very carefully, he braced himself and sought lower grips for his hands. In this painstaking fashion, he negotiated the cliff.

The floor of the passage wound back and forth like a twisting corridor, and sometimes Sithas could see no more than a dozen feet in front of him. At such times, he moved with extra caution, peering around the bend before proceeding ahead. Thus it was that he came upon the nest.

At first he thought it to be an eagle’s eyrie. A huge circle of twigs, sticks, and branches rested on a slight shoulder of the ravine. Steep cliffs dropped away below it. A hollow in the middle of the nest had obviously been smoothed out, creating a deep and sheltering lair that was nearly six feet across. Three small feathered creatures moved there, immediately turning to him with gaping beaks and sharp, demanding squawks.

The animals rose, spreading their wings and bleating with increased urgency.

Their feathers, Sithas saw, were straggly and thin; they looked incapable of flight. Their actions seemed like those of fledglings, yet already the young griffons were the size of large hawks.

Sithas peeked carefully over the lip of a boulder. The tiny griffons, he saw, had collected themselves into a bundle of feathers and fur, talons and beaks.

They hissed and spat, the feathers along the napes of their eagle necks bristling. At the same time, feline tails lashed back and forth in excitement and tension.

For several moments, the elf dared not draw a breath or even open his mouth. So powerful was the sense of triumph sweeping over him that he had to resist the temptation to shout his delight aloud.

He forced himself to keep still, hiding in the shadow of the huge rock, trying to restrain the pounding of his heart.

He had found the griffons! They lived!

Of course, these nestlings were not the proud creatures he sought, but the nearness of the flock was no longer a matter of doubt. It remained only a matter of time before he would discover the full-grown creatures. How many were there? When would they return? He watched and waited.

For perhaps half an hour, he remained immobile. He searched the skies above, even as he shrank against the wall of the ravine and tried to conceal himself from overhead view.

With sudden urgency, he pulled the ivory scroll tube from his backpack.

Unrolling the parchment, he studied the symbols of enchantment. It would require concentration and discipline, he saw, in order to pronounce the old elvish script, which was full of archaic pronunciations and mystical terminology.

He allowed his tongue to shape the unusual sounds, practicing silently.

“Keerin – silvan! … Thanthal ellish, Quirnost … Hothist kranthas, Karin Than-tanthas!”

Such a simple spell. Perhaps it was madness to expect success from it. It certainly seemed rash, now that he stood here, to face a multitude of savage carnivores with nothing more than these words to protect him.

Again his restlessness returned, and finally he had to move. With as much stealth as he could muster, Sithas worked his way up the slope of the ravine.

He sought a place with a commanding view of the valley. His instincts told him that the events of the rest of this day would prove the worth of the entire quest. Indeed, they might measure the worth of his entire life.

He found a broad shoulder of the ridge, an open ledge that nevertheless lay in the shadow of an overhanging shelf of rock. From here, he believed, he could see all of the valley below him, but he could not be seen, or attacked, from above.

He settled down to wait. The sun seemed to hang motionless in the sky, mocking him.

He dozed for a while, lulled by the warmth of the sun and perhaps drained by his own tension. When he awoke, it was with abrupt alarm. He thought momentarily that he had entered a bizarre dream.

Blinking and shaking his head, Sithas saw a tiny spot of movement, no more than a speck of darkness against the clear sky. From the great distance, he knew that whatever he saw must be very large indeed. He saw a pair of broad wings supporting a body that seemed to grow with each passing moment. He stared, but could see nothing else beyond this lone scout.

The streamlined bird shape swooped into a low dive, settling toward the ridge across the valley. Even at this great distance, Sithas saw the leonine rear legs descend, supporting the griffon’s weight on the ground while it used its wings to slowly settle its forefeet. He could plainly see the creature’s size and sense its raw, contained power.

Another flying beast hove into view, and then several more, all of them settling beside the first. From this far away, he might have been looking at a flock of blackbirds settling toward a farmer’s field lush with ripening corn. But he knew that each of the griffons was larger than a horse.

The beasts returned to their valley, flying in a great flock and shrieking their delight at the homecoming. They sounded like great eagles, though louder and fiercer than even those proud birds. The flock spread across a mile or more, darkening the sky with their impressive presence.

They settled along the jagged ridge and gathered upon nearby summits, still miles away from Sithas. The many rocky knobs disappeared beneath slowly beating wings and smooth, powerful bodies seeking comfortable perches. For the first time, Sithas became aware of many nests, all along the ridges and slopes of his side of the valley, as dozens of fledglings squawked and squirmed in their nests. So splendidly were they camouflaged that he hadn’t noticed the presence of several within a hundred feet of his vantage point.

Now several of the adults took to the air again, springing into the valley with long, graceful dives, allowing their hind legs to trail out behind them in sleek, streamlined efficiency. As they drew closer, Sithas could see long strips of red meat dangling from their mouths. Birdlike, they would tend to the feeding of their young.

The rest of the flock followed, once again filling the sky with the steady pulse of their wingbeats. They numbered in the hundreds, perhaps half a thousand, though Sithas did not take the time to count. Instead, he knew that he had to act boldly and promptly.

With quick, certain gestures, he unfurled the scroll and took a look at the bizarre, foreign-looking symbols. Gritting his teeth, he stepped boldly outward, to the lip of the precipice, raising the scroll before him. Now he felt totally naked and exposed.

His movement provoked a stunning and instant reaction. The valley rang with a chorus of shrill cries of alarm as the savage griffons spotted him and squalled their challenges. The ones in the lead, those carrying food for the young, immediately dove to the sides, away from the elven interloper. The rest tucked their wings and dove straight toward the Speaker of the Stars.

Terror choked in Sithas’s throat. Never had he faced such a terrible onslaught. The griffons rocketed closer with astonishing speed. Huge talons reached toward him, eager to tear the flesh from his limbs.

He forced himself to look down at the scroll, thinking that his voice would never even be heard in this din!

But he read the words anyway. His voice came from somewhere deep within him, powerful and commanding. The sounds of the old elvish words seemed suddenly like the language he had known all his life. He spoke with great strength, his tone vibrant and compelling, betraying no sign of the fear that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Keerin – silvan!”

At this first phrase, a silence descended so suddenly that the absence of sound struck Sithas almost like a physical force, knocking him off his feet. He sensed that the griffons were still diving, still swooping toward him, but their shrill cries had been silenced by his first words. This enhanced his confidence.

“Thanthal ellish, Quimost.”

The words seemed to flame on the scroll before him, each symbol erupting into life as he read it. He did not dare to look up.

“Hothist kranthas, Karin Than-tanthas!”

The last of the symbols flared and waned, and now the elf looked up, boldly seeking the griffons with his eyes. He would meet his death bravely or he would tame them.

The first thing he saw was the hate-filled visage of a diving griffon. The monstrous creature’s beak gaped, and both the eagle claws of its front legs and the lion talons of its rear limbs reached toward Sithas, ready to tear him asunder.

But then suddenly it veered upward, spreading its broad wings and coming to rest upon the shelf of rock directly before the tall form of Sithas, Speaker of the Stars, scion of the House of Silvanos.

“Come to me, creatures of the sky!” Sithas cried. An awe inspiring sense of power swept over him, and he raised his arms, his hands clenched into fists held skyward.

“Come, my griffons! Answer the call of your master!”

And come to him they did.

The flock, dramatically spellbound, swirled around him and settled toward places of vantage on the towering ridges nearby. One of these approached the elf, creeping along the crest of rock. Sithas saw a slash of white feathers across its brown breast, and his spirits soared in sudden recognition.

“Arcuballis!” he cried as the griffon’s head rose in acknowledgment. The great creature lived and had somehow found a home with this flock of his kin!

The proud griffon sprang to Sithas, rearing before him and spreading his vast wings. The elf saw a gouge along one side of Arcuballis’s head where the giant’s club had cracked him. Sithas was surprised at the joy he felt at the discovery of his brother’s lifelong steed, and that joy, he knew, would pale compared to Kith-Kanan’s own delight.

The others, too, moved toward him – with pride and power, but no longer did they seem to be threatening. Indeed, curiosity seemed to be their dominant trait.

By the gods, he had done it! His quest had succeeded! Because of his elation, the distant war seemed already all but won.

Chapter 18

THAT DAY,
LATE WINTER

The dire wolves attacked suddenly, bursting from the concealment of trees that grew within a hundred feet of the cave mouth. Kith-Kanan and One-Tooth had planned their defense, but nevertheless, the onslaught came with surprising speed.

“There! Hounds come!” shouted the giant, first to see the huge, shaggy brutes.

Kith-Kanan seized his bow and pulled himself to his feet, cursing the stiffness that still impaired the use of his leg.

The largest of the dire wolves led the charge. A nightmarish brute, with murderous yellow eyes and a great, bristling mane of black fur, the beast sprinted toward the cave, while others of its pack followed in its wake. It snarled, curling its black, drooling lips to reveal teeth as long as Kith’s fingers.

The dire wolves had the same narrow muzzles, alert, pointed ears, and fur-coated bodies and tails of normal wolves. However, they were much larger than their more common cousins, and of far more fearsome disposition. A dozen erupted from the trees in the first wave, and Kith saw more of the dim gray shapes lurking in the woods beyond.

The elf propped himself up against a wall. With mechanical precision, he launched an arrow, nocked another, and fired again. He released a dizzying barrage of missiles at the loping canines. The razor-sharp steel of the arrowheads cut through fur and sinew, gouging deep wounds into the bristling canines, but even the bloodiest cuts seemed only to enrage the formidable creatures.

One-Tooth lumbered forward, his club raised. The hill giant grunted and swung, but his target skipped to one side. Whirling, the dire wolf reached with hungry fangs for the giant’s unprotected calf, but One-Tooth leaped away with surprising quickness. Instead of lunging after the giant, the monster darted toward Kith-Kanan as a snarling trio of its fellow wolves took up the assault on the hill giant.

The elf smoothly raised his bow and let fly another arrow. Though the missile scored a bloody gash on the beast’s flank it didn’t seem to appreciably affect its charge. One-Tooth whirled in a circle, clearing the menacing forms away from himself, and then swung desperately, knocking the rear legs of one large monster to the side. The wolf crashed to the ground and then sprang away.

The wolves began to circle One-Tooth. Kith-Kanan shot at yet another wolf, and another, dropping each with arrows to the throat. A wolf turned from the giant, loping toward the elf, and Kith brought it down – but not before driving three arrows into its chest, and even then the beast didn’t stop until it had practically reached him.

Once again they came in a rush, a nightmarish image of snarling lips, glistening fangs, and gleaming, hate-filled eyes. The elf shot his arrows one after the other, scarcely noting the effect of one before the next was nocked.

The giant bashed at the shaggy beasts, while they in turn tore at his legs, ripping gory wounds with their fangs.

The packed snow around the cave mouth was covered with gray bodies, and great patches of it were stained crimson by the spilled blood of the slain wolves. One-Tooth stumbled, nearly going down amid the viciously snarling attackers. A wolf leaped for the giant’s neck, but the elven archer killed it in midair with a single arrow to the heart.

Then Kith-Kanan reached for another arrow and realized he had used them all. Grimly drawing his sword, he pushed himself away from the wall and limped toward the beleaguered giant. He felt terribly vulnerable without the rock wall behind him, but he couldn’t leave the courageous hill giant to die by himself.

Then suddenly, before Kith reached the melee, the wolves sprang away from the giant and darted back to the shelter of the trees, leaving a dozen of their number behind, dead.

“Where go hounds?” demanded the hill giant, shaking his fist after the wolves.

“I don’t know,” admitted the elf. “I don’t think I scared them away.”

“Good fight!” One-Tooth beamed at Kith-Kanan, wiping a trunk-like wrist below his running nose. “Big hounds mean, too!”

“Not so mean as we are, my friend,” Kith noted, still puzzled by the sudden retreat of the wolves just when their victory had seemed assured.

Kith-Kanan was relieved to see that One-Tooth’s wounds, while bloody, were not deep. He showed the giant how to clean them with snow, meanwhile keeping his eyes nervously on the surrounding pines.

He heard the disturbance in the air before One-Tooth did, but both of them instinctively looked up at the sky. They saw them coming from the east – a horizon full of great soaring shapes, with proudly spread wings and long, powerful bodies.

“The griffons!” Kith cried, whooping with glee. The giant stared at him as if he had lost his mind while he danced about the clearing, waving and shouting.

The great flock settled across the valley floor, squawking and growling over the best perches. Sithas came to earth, riding one of the griffons, and Kith-Kanan recognized his mount immediately.

“Arcuballis! Sithas!”

His brother, equally elated, leaped to the ground. The twins embraced, too full of emotion for words.

“Big lion-bird,” grunted One-Tooth, eyeing Arcuballis carefully. “Rock-nose bring home.”

“Bring home – to your village?” asked Kith.

“Yup. Lion-bird hurt. Rock-nose feed, him fly away.”

“The giants must have taken him with them that night they first attacked us,” Kith-Kanan guessed. “They nursed him back to health.”

“And then he escaped, and found the flock in the wild. He was with them when I finally discovered their nests,” Sithas concluded.

Sithas related the tale of his search and the discovery of the flock. “I left the nestlings and several dozen females who had been feeding them in the valley.

The rest came with me.”

“There are hundreds,” observed Kith-Kanan, amazed.

“More than four hundred, I think, though I haven’t made an exact count.”

“And the spell? It worked like it was supposed to?”

“I thought they were going to tear me apart. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly hold the scroll,” Sithas exaggerated. “I read the incantation, and the words seemed to flame off the page. I had just finished the spell when the first one attacked.”

“And then what?”

“He just landed in front of me, as if he was waiting for instructions. They all settled down. That’s when I saw Arcuballis. When I mounted him and he took to the air, the others followed.”

“By the gods! Let’s see the humans try to stand against us now!” Kith-Kanan practically crowed his excitement.

“How have you fared? Not without some trouble, I see.” Sithas indicated the pile of dead wolves, and Kith told him about the attack.

“They must have heard you coming,” Kith speculated.

“Let’s get back to the city. A whole winter has passed!” Sithas urged.

Kith turned toward the cave, suddenly spotting One-Tooth. The giant had observed – at first with interest, but then with ill-concealed concern – the exchange between the brothers.

It surprised the elf to realize the depth of the bond that had developed between them.

“Three-Legs fly away?” One-Tooth looked at Kith, frowning quizzically.

Kith didn’t try to explain. Instead, he clasped one of the giant’s big hands in both of his own. “I’ll miss you,” he said quietly. “You saved my life today – and I’m grateful to have had your friendship and protection!”

“Good-bye, friend,” said the giant sadly.

Then it was time for the elves to mount the griffons and to turn their thoughts toward the future … toward home.

Part III

WINDRIDERS

Chapter 19

EARLY SPRING,
YEAR OF THE BEAR,

(2213 PC)

The forestlands of Silvanost stretched below like a shaggy green carpet, extending to the far horizons and beyond. Huge winged shadows flickered across the ground, marking the path of the griffons. The creatures flew in great V-shaped wedges, several dozen griffons in each wedge. These formations spread across more than a mile.

Kith-Kanan and Sithas rode the first two of the mighty beasts, flying side by side toward their home. The forest had stretched below them for two days, but now, in the far distance, a faint glimmer of ivory light appeared. They soared faster than the wind, and swiftly that speck became identifiable as the Tower of the Stars. Soon the lesser towers of Silvanost came into view, jutting above the treetops like a field of sharp spires.

As they left the wilderness behind, Kith-Kanan thought fondly of the giant they had grown to know. One-Tooth had waved to them from the snow-filled valley until the fliers had vanished from sight. Kith-Kanan still remembered his one tusklike tooth bobbing up and down in a forlorn gesture of farewell.

They followed the River Thon-Thalas toward the island that held the elven capital. The griffons streamed into a long line behind them, and several of them uttered squawks of anticipation as they descended. Five hundred feet over the river, they raced southward, and soon the whole city sprawled below them.

The creatures shrieked and squalled, alarming the good citizens of Silvanost so much that, for several minutes, there existed a state of general panic, during which time most elves assumed that the war had come home to roost via some arcane and potent human ensorcelment.

Only when the two blond-haired elves were spotted did the panic turn to curiosity and wonder. And by the time Sithas and Kith-Kanan had circled the palace grounds and then led their charges in a gradual downward spiral toward the Gardens of Astarin, the word had spread. The emotions of the Silvanesti elves exploded into a spontaneous outpouring of joy.

Nirakina was the first to meet the twins as the great creatures settled to the ground. Their mother’s eyes flowed with tears, and at first she could not speak. She took turns kissing each of them and then holding them at arms’ length, as if making sure that they were alive and fit.

Beyond her, Sithas saw Tamanier Ambrodel, and his spirit was buoyed even higher. Lord Ambrodel had returned from his secret mission to Thorbardin.

Loyally, he had stayed discreet about what he had learned. Now he might have decisive news about a dwarven alliance in the elven war.

“Welcome home, Your Highness,” Ambrodel said sincerely as Sithas clasped the lord chamberlain’s shoulders.

“It’s good to see you here to greet me! We will talk as soon as I can break away.” Ambrodel nodded, the elf’s narrow face reflecting private delight.

Meanwhile, the griffons continued to descend into the gardens, and across the gaming fields, and even into many of the nearby vegetable plots. They shrieked and growled, and the good citizens of the city gave them wide berth. Nevertheless, each griffon remained well behaved once it landed, moving only to preen its feathers or to settle weary wings and legs. When they had all landed, they squatted comfortably on the ground and took little note of the intense excitement surrounding them.

Kith-Kanan, with a barely noticeable limp, took his mother’s arm as Hermathya and a dozen courtiers emerged from the Hall of Audience. Lord Quimant walked, with a quick stride, at their head.

“Excellency!” he cried in delight, racing forward to warmly embrace the Speaker of the Stars.

Hermathya approached a good deal more slowly, greeting her husband with a formal kiss. Her greeting was cool, though her relief was obvious even through her pretense of annoyance.

“My son!” Sithas said excitedly. “Where is Vanesti?”

A nursemaid stepped forward, offering the infant to his father.

“Can this be him? How much he’s changed!” Sithas, with a sense of awe, took his son in his arms while the crowd quieted. Indeed, the elfin child was much larger than when they had departed, nearly half a year earlier. His blond hair grew thick upon his scalp. As his tiny eyes looked toward his father, Vanesti’s face broke into a brilliant smile.

For several moments, Sithas seemed unable to speak. Hermathya came to him and very gently took the child. Turning away from her husband, her gaze briefly met Kith-Kanan’s. He was startled by the look he saw there. It was cool and vacant, as if he did not exist. It had been many weeks since he had thought of her, but this expression provoked a brief, angry flash of jealousy – and, at the same time, a reminder of his guilt.

“Come – to the palace, everyone!” Sithas shouted, throwing an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Tonight there will be a feast for all the city! Let word be spread immediately! Summon the bards. We have a tale for them to hear and to spread across the nation!”

The news carried through the city as fast as the cry could pass from lips to ear, and all the elves of Silvanost prepared to celebrate the return of the royal heirs. Butchers slaughtered prime pigs, casks of wine rumbled forth from the cellars, and colorful lanterns swiftly sprouted, as if by magic, from every tree, lamppost, and gate in the city. The festivities began immediately, and the citizenry danced in the streets and sang the great songs of the elven nation. Meanwhile, Sithas and Kith-Kanan joined Lord Regent Quimant and Lord Chamberlain Tamanier Ambrodel in a small audience chamber. The regent looked at the chamberlain with some surprise and turned to Sithas with a questioning look. When the Speaker of the Stars said nothing, Quimant cleared his throat and spoke awkwardly.

“Excellency, perhaps the lord chamberlain should join us after the conclusion of this conference. After all, some of the items I have to report are of the most confidential nature.” He paused, as if embarrassed to continue.

“Indeed, in this nearly half a year that you have been absent, I must report that the lord chamberlain has not in fact been present in the capital. He only returned recently, from his family estates. Apparently matters of his clan’s business interests took precedence over affairs of state.”

“Tamanier Ambrodel has my complete confidence. Indeed,” Sithas replied, “we may find that he has reports to make as well.”

“Of course, my lord,” Quimant said quickly, with a deep bow.

Quimant immediately started to fill them in on the events that had occurred during their absence.

“First, Sithelbec still stands as strong as ever.” The lord of Clan Oakleaf anticipated Kith-Kanan’s most urgent question. “A messenger from the fortress broke through the lines a few weeks past, bringing word that the defenders have repulsed every attempt to storm the walls.”

“Good. It is as I hoped,” Kith replied. Nevertheless he was relieved.

“However, the pressure is increasing. We have word of a team of dwarven engineers – Theiwar, apparently – aiding the humans in excavating siege works against the walls. Also, the number of wild elves throwing in their lot with Ergoth is increasing steadily. There are more than a thousand of them, and apparently they have been formed into a ‘free elf company’.”

“Fighting their own people?” Sithas was aghast at the notion. His face reddened with controlled fury.

“More and more of them have questioned the right of Silvanost to rule them.

And an expedition of the wild elves of the Kagonesti arrived here shortly after you left to plead for an end to the bloodshed.”

“The ignoble scum!” Sithas rose to his feet and stalked across the chamber before whirling to face Quimant. Vivid lines of anger marred his face. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Quimant replied, his own face displaying a smug grin. “They have spent the winter in your dungeon. Perhaps you’d care to speak to them yourself!”

“Good.” Sithas nodded approvingly. “We can’t have this kind of demonstration. We’ll make an example of them to discourage any further treachery.”

Kith-Kanan faced his brother. “Don’t you want to – at the very least – hear what they have to say?”

Sithas looked at him as if he spoke a different language. “Why? They’re traitors, that’s obvious! Why should we —”

“Traitors? They have come here to talk. The traitors are those who have joined the enemy out of hand! We need to ask questions!”

“I find it astonishing that you, of all of us, should take this approach,” Sithas said softly. “You are the one who has to carry out our plans, the one whose life is most at risk. Can you not understand that these … elves” – Sithas spat the word as if it were anathema – “should be dealt with quickly and ruthlessly?”

“If they are indeed traitors, of course! But you can take the trouble to hear them first, to find out if they are in fact treacherous or simply honest citizens living in danger and fear!”

Sithas and Kith-Kanan glowered at each other like fierce strangers. Tamanier Ambrodel quietly watched the exchange. He had offered no opinion on any topic as yet, and he felt that this was not the time to interject his view. Lord Quimant, however, was more forthright.

“General, Excellency, please … there are more details. Some of the news is urgent.” The lord stood and raised his hands.

Sithas nodded and collapsed into his chair. Kith-Kanan remained standing, turning expectantly toward the lord regent.

“Word out of Thorbardin arrived barely a fortnight ago. The ambassador, Than-Kar of the Theiwar clan, reported it to me in a most unpleasant and arrogant tone. His king, he claims, has ruled this to be a war between the humans and elves. The dwarves are determined to remain neutral.”

“No troops? They will send us nothing?” Kith-Kanan stared at Quimant, appalled. Just when he had begun to see a glimmer of hope on the military horizon, to get news like this! Nothing could be more disastrous. The general slowly slumped into his chair, trying unsuccessfully to fight a rising wave of nausea.

Shaking his head in shock, he looked at his brother, expecting to see the same sense of dismay written across Sithas’s face. Instead, however, the speaker’s eyes had narrowed in an inscrutable expression. Didn’t he understand?

“This is catastrophic!” Kith-Kanan exclaimed, angry that the Speaker didn’t seem to grasp this basic fact. “Without the dwarves, we are doomed to be terribly outnumbered in every battle. Even with the griffons, we can’t prevail against a quarter of a million men!”

“Indeed,” Sithas agreed calmly. Finally he spoke to Ambrodel. “And your own mission, my lord, does that bear this information out?”

Lord Quimant gave a start when he realized that Sithas was addressing Ambrodel.

“Rather dramatically not, Excellency,” Ambrodel replied softly. Kith-Kanan and Lord Quimant both stared at the chamberlain in mixed astonishment.

“I regret the subterfuge, my lords. The Speaker of the Stars instructed me to reveal my mission to no one, to report only to him.”

“There was no reason to say anything – not until now,” Sithas said. Once again, the others felt that commanding tone in his voice that brought all discussion to an abrupt halt. “If the lord chamberlain will continue …?”

“Of course, Your Excellency.” Ambrodel turned to include them all in his explanation. “I have wintered in the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin.”

“What?” Quimant’s jaw dropped. Kith-Kanan remained silent, but his lips compressed into a tight smile as he began to appreciate his brother’s wiliness.

“It had been the Speaker’s assessment, very early on, that Ambassador Than-Kar was not doing an appropriately thorough job of maintaining open and honest communication between our two realms.”

“I see,” Quimant said, with a formal nod.

“Indeed, as events have developed, our esteemed leader’s assessment has been proven to be accurate.”

“Than-Kar has deliberately sabotaged our negotiations?” demanded Kith.

“Blatantly. King Hal-Waith has long backed our cause, as it was presented to him by Dunbarth Ironthumb upon that ambassador’s return home. Than-Kar’s original mission had been to report to us the king’s intent to send twenty-five thousand troops to aid our cause.”

“But I saw no sign of these troops on the plain. There is no word of them now, is there?” Kith-Kanan probed.

Quimant shook his head. “No – and certainly reports would have reached Silvanost had they marched during the winter.”

“They did not march, not then,” continued Ambrodel. “The offer of aid came with several conditions attached, conditions which Than-Kar reported to his king that we were unwilling to accept.”

“Conditions?” Now Kith was concerned. “What conditions?”

“Fairly reasonable, under the circumstances. The dwarves recognize you as overall commander of the army, but they will not allow their own units to be broken up into smaller detachments – and dwarven units will work only under dwarven leaders.”

“Those commanders presumably answerable to me under battle conditions?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“Yes,” Ambrodel nodded.

The elven general couldn’t believe his ears. Dwarven fighting prowess and tactical mastery were legendary. And twenty-five thousand such warriors … why, if they fought alongside griffon cavalry, the siege of Sithelbec might be lifted in a long afternoon of fighting!

“There were some other minor points, also very reasonable. Bodies to be shipped to Thorbardin for burial, dwarven holidays honored, a steady supply of ale maintained, and so on. I do not anticipate any objection on your part.”

“Of course not!” Kith-Kanan sprang to his feet again, this time in excitement.

Then he remembered the obstruction presented by Than-Kar, and his mood darkened. “Have you concluded the deal? Must we still work through the ambassador? How long —”

Ambrodel smiled and held up his hands. “The army was mustering as I left.

For all I know, they have already emerged from the underground realm. They would march, I was promised, when the snowmelt in the Kharolis Mountains allowed free passage.” The chamberlain shivered as he remembered the long, dark winter he spent there. “It never gets warm in Thorbardin. You’re always damp and squinting through the dark. By the gods, who knows how the dwarves can stand living underground?”

“And the ambassador?” This time Sithas asked the question. Once again those lines of anger tightened his face as he pondered the extent of Than-Kar’s duplicity.

“King Hal-Waith would consider it a personal favor if we were to place him under arrest, detaining him until such time as the next dwarven mission arrives. It should be here sometime during the summer.”

“Any word on numbers? On their march route?” Tactics already swirled through Kith-Kanan’s head.

Ambrodel pursed his lips and shook his head. “Only the name of the commander, whom I trust will meet with your approval.”

“Dunbarth Ironthumb?” Kith-Kanan was hopeful.

“None other.”

“That is good news!” That dignified statesman had been the brightest element of the otherwise frustrating councils between Thorbardin, Silvanesti, and Ergoth. The ambassador from the dwarven nation had retained a sense of humor and self-deprecating whimsy that had lightened many an otherwise tedious session of negotiation.

“Where am I to join him?” Kith-Kanan asked. “Shall I take Arcuballis and fly to Thorbardin itself?”

Ambrodel shook his head. “I don’t think you could. The gates remain carefully hidden.”

“But surely you could direct me! Didn’t you say that you have been there?”

“Indeed,” the chamberlain agreed with a nod. He coughed awkwardly. “But to tell you the truth, I never saw the gates, nor could I describe the approach to you or to anyone.”

“How did you get in, then?”

“It’s a trifle embarrassing, actually. I spent nearly a month floundering around in the mountains, seeking a trail or a road or any kind of sign of the gate. I found nothing. Finally, however, I was met in my camp by a small band of dwarven scouts. Apparently they keep an eye on the perimeter and were watching my hapless movements, wondering what I was up to.”

“But you must have entered through the gate,” Kith said.

“Indeed,” nodded Ambrodel. “But I spent the two days of the approach – two very long days, I might add – stumbling along with a blindfold over my eyes.”

“That’s an outrage!” barked Quimant, stiffening in agitation. “An insult to our race!”

Sithas, too, scowled. Only Kith-Kanan reacted with a thin smile and a nod of understanding. “With treachery among their own people, it only seems a natural precaution,” the elven general remarked. That lessened the tension, and Ambrodel nodded in reluctant agreement.

“Excellency,” inquired Quimant, with careful formality. It was obvious that the lord regent was annoyed by not having been apprised of the secret negotiations. “This is indeed a most splendid development, but was it necessary to retain such a level of secrecy? Perhaps I could have aided the cause had I been kept informed.”

“Indeed, quite true, my good cousin-in-law. There was no fear that the knowledge would have been misplaced in you – save this one. In your position as regent, you are the one who has spent the greatest amount of time with Than-Kar. It was essential that the ambassador not know of this plan, and I felt that the safest way to keep you from a revealing slip – inadvertent, of course – was to withhold the knowledge from you. The decision was mine alone.”

“I cannot question the Speaker’s wisdom,” replied the noble humbly. “This is a most encouraging turn of events.”

*

Kith left the meeting in order to arrange for the postings around the city. He wanted all Silvanost to quickly learn of the call for volunteers. He intended to personally interview and test all applicants for the griffon cavalry.

Sithas remained behind, with Quimant and Ambrodel, to attend to matters of government. “As to the city, how has it fared in our absence?”

Quimant informed him of other matters: weapons production was splendid, with a great stockpile of arms gathered; refugees from the plains had stopped coming to Silvanost – a fact that had greatly eased the tensions and crowding within the city; the higher taxes that Sithas had decreed, in order to pay for the war, had been collected with only a few minor incidents.

“There has been some violence along the waterfront. The city guard has confronted Than-Kar’s escorts on more than one occasion. We’ve had several elves badly injured and one killed during these brawls.”

“The Theiwar?” guessed Sithas.

“Indeed. The primary troublemakers can be found among the officers of Than-Kar’s guard, as if they want to create an incident.” Quimant’s disgust with the dwarves was apparent in his sarcastic tone.

We’ll deal with them … when the time is right. We’ll wait till Kith-Kanan forms his cavalry and departs for the west.”

“I’m certain he’ll have no shortage of volunteers. There are many noble elves who had resisted the call to arms, as it applies to the infantry,” said Lord Quimant. “They’ll leap at the chance to form an elite unit, especially with the threat of conscription hanging over their heads!”

“We’ll keep news of Thorbardin’s commitment secret,” Sithas added. “Not a word of it is to leave this room. In the meantime, tell me about the additional troops for the infantry. How fares the training of the new regiments?”

“We have five thousand elves under arms, ready to march when you give the command.”

“I had hoped for more.”

Quimant hemmed and hawed. “The sentiment in the city is not wholly in favor of the war. Our people do not seem to grasp the stakes here.”

“We’ll make them understand,” growled Sithas, looking to the lord as if he expected Quimant to challenge him. His wife’s cousin remained silent on that point, however.

Instead, Quimant hesitantly offered another suggestion. “We do have another source of troops,” he ventured. “However, they may not meet with the Speaker’s satisfaction.”

“Another source? Where?” Sithas demanded.

“Humans – mercenaries. There are great bands of them in the plains north of here and over to the west. Many of them bear no great love for the emperor of Ergoth and would be willing to join our service – for a price, of course.”

“Never!” Sithas leaped to his feet, livid. “How can you even suggest such an abomination! If we cannot preserve our nation with our own troops, we do not deserve victory!”

His voice rang from the walls of the small chamber, and he glared at Quimant and Ambrodel, as if daring a challenge. None was forthcoming, and slowly the Speaker of the Stars relaxed.

“Forgive my outburst,” he said, with a nod to Quimant. “You were merely making a suggestion. That I understand.”

“Consider the suggestion withdrawn.” The lord bowed to his ruler.

*

The recruits for the griffon-mounted cavalry were sworn in during a sunny ceremony a week after the brothers had arrived in the city. The event was held on the gaming fields beyond the gardens, for no place else in the city provided enough open space for the great steeds and their proud, newly appointed riders to assemble.

Thousands of elves turned out to watch, overflowing the large grandstands and lining the perimeter of the fields. Others gathered in the nearby towers, many of which rose a hundred feet or more into the air, providing splendid vantage.

“I welcome you, brave elves, to the ranks of an elite and decisive force, unique in our grand history!” Kith-Kanan addressed the recruits while the onlookers strained to hear his words.

“We shall take to the sky under a name that bespeaks our speed – henceforth we shall be known as the Windriders!”

A great cheer arose from the warriors and the spectators.

As Quimant had predicted, many scions of noble families had flocked to the call to arms once they learned of the nature of the elite unit. Kith-Kanan had disappointed and angered a great number of them by selecting his troops only after extensive combat tests and rigorous training procedures. Sons of masons, carpenters, and laborers were offered the same opportunities as the proud heirs of the noble houses. Those who were not truly desirous of the honor, or were unwilling or incapable of meeting the high standards established by Kith-Kanan, quickly fell away, consigned to the infantry. At the end of the brutal week of tests, the elven commander had been left with more than a thousand elves of proven courage, dedication, and skill.

“You will train in the use of the light lance, the elven longbow, and the steel-edged longsword. Lances will be wielded in the air or on the ground!”

He looked over the assembled elves. They stood, a pair flanking each griffon, wearing shiny steel helms with long plumes of horsehair. The Windriders wore supple leather boots and smooth torso armor of black leather. They were a formidable force, and the training to come would only enhance their abilities.

Brass trumpets blared the climax of the ceremony, and each of the Windriders received a steel-edged shortsword, which would be worn throughout the training. They would have to learn fast, Kith-Kanan had warned his new recruits, and he knew that they would.

He looked to the west, suddenly restless. It won’t be long now, he told himself.

Soon the siege of Sithelbec would be broken – and how long after that would it be before the war was won?

Chapter 20

MIDSPRING

(2213 PC)

Kith-Kanan couldn’t sleep. He went for a walk in the Gardens of Astarin, relieved that the griffons had all been moved to the sporting fields. There the creatures rested and enjoyed the fresh meat that the palace liverymen hastily had butchered and carted over to them.

For a time, the elf lost himself in the twists and turns of the elegant gardens.

The soothing surroundings took him back to his youth, to untroubled days and, later, to passionate nights. How many times, he reflected, had he and Hermathya met among this secluded foliage?

Anxiously he tried to shrug off the memories. Soon he and Arcuballis would take to the air, leaving this city and its temptations behind. The mere sight of her was a source of deep guilt and discomfort to him.

As if circumstances mirrored his thoughts, he turned a corner and encountered his brother’s wife, walking in quiet contemplation. Hermathya looked up, but if she was at all surprised to encounter him, her face didn’t reveal anything.

“Hello, Kith-Kanan.” Her smile was deep and warm and suddenly, it seemed to Kith, reckless.

“Hello, Hermathya.” He was certainly surprised to see her. The rest of the palace was dark, and the hour was quite late.

“I saw you come to the garden and came here to find you,” she informed him.

Alarms bells went off in his mind as he gazed at her. By the gods, how beautiful she was! No woman he had ever known aroused him like Hermathya.

Not even Anaya. He could tell, by the smoldering look in her eyes, that her thoughts were similar.

She took a step toward him.

The instinct to reach out and crush her to him, to pull her into his arms and touch her, was almost overpowering. But at the same time, he had sordid memories of their last tryst and her unfaithfulness to his brother. He wanted her, but he dare not weaken again – especially now, after all that he and Sithas had been through together.

Only with a great effort of will did Kith-Kanan step back, raising his hands to stop her approach.

“You are my brother’s wife,” he said, somewhat irrelevantly.

“I was his wife last autumn,” she spat, suddenly venomous.

“Last autumn was a mistake. Hermathya, I loved you once. I think of you now more than I care to admit. But I will not betray my brother!” Again, he added silently. “Can you accept this? Can we be members of the same family and not torment each other with memories of a past that ought to be buried and forgotten?”

Hermathya suddenly clasped her hands over her face. Her body wracking with sobs, she turned and ran, swiftly disappearing from Kith-Kanan’s sight.

For a long time afterward, he stared at the spot where she had stood. The image of her body, of her face, of her exquisite presence, remained vivid in his mind, almost as if she was still there.

*

Three days later, Kith was ready to embark. His plan of battle had been made, but there remained many things to be done. The Windriders wouldn’t fly to the west for

another six weeks. Under the tutelage of their new captain, Hallus, they had to train rigorously in the meantime.

“How long do you think it will take to find Dunbarth?” asked Sithas when he, his mother, and Tamanier Ambrodel came to see Kith-Kanan off.

Kith shrugged. “That’s one reason I’m leaving right away. I have to hook up with the dwarves and fill them in on the timetable, then get to Sithelbec before the Windriders.”

“Be careful,” his mother urged. The color had come back into her face since the brothers’ return, and for the past several weeks she had seemed as merry and robust as ever. Now she struggled not to weep.

“I will,” Kith promised, holding her in his arms. They all hoped the war would end quickly but understood that it might be many months, even years, before he could return.

The door to the audience chamber burst open, and the elves whirled, surprised and then amused. Vanesti stood there.

Sithas’s son, not yet a year old, toddled toward them with an unsteady gait and a broad smile across his elven features. In his hand, he brandished a wooden sword, slashing at imagined enemies to the right and left until his own momentum toppled him to the floor. The sword abandoned, he rose and approached Kith-Kanan unsteadily.

“Pa-pa!” cried the tiny elf, beaming.

Kith blushed and stepped aside. “There’s your papa,” he said, indicating Sithas.

Kith-Kanan noted how much Vanesti had changed during the course of their winter in the mountains. Conceivably the war could drag on for several more years. The toddler would be a young boy by the next time he saw him.

“Come to Uncle Kith, Vanesti. Say good-bye before I ride the griffon!”

Vanesti pouted briefly, but then he wrapped his uncle in a tight hug. Lifting the tiny fellow up and holding him, Kith felt a pang of regret. Would he ever be able to settle down and have children of his own?

Once again Kith-Kanan and Arcuballis took off on an important mission. The vast forestlands of Silvanesti sprawled beneath them. Far to the south, Kith caught an occasional glimpse of the Courrain Ocean, which stretched past the horizon with a limitless expanse.

Soon he came to the plains, and they continued to soar high above the sea of grass that stretched to the limits of his vision. He knew that, northward, his embattled Wildrunners still held their fortress against the pressing human horde. Soon he would join them.

He spotted the snowy crests of the Kharolis Mountains jutting into the sky.

For a full day, Kith watched the imposing heights grow closer, until at last he flew above the wooded valleys that extended from the heart of the range and he was encircled on all sides by great peaks.

Here he began his search in earnest. He knew that the kingdom of Thorbardin lay entirely underground, with great gates providing access from the north and south. The snowmelt had long passed from the forested valleys to the high slopes. The gate, he reasoned, would occupy a lower elevation, both for enhanced concealment and easier access.

He searched along these valleys every day from first to last light, seeking a sign of the passage of the dwarven army. The land consisted of almost entirely uninhabited wilderness, so he reckoned that the march of twenty thousand heavy-booted dwarves would leave some kind of obvious trail.

For days, his search was fruitless. He began to chafe at the lost time. Borne by his speedy griffon, he crossed the range two full times, but never did he find the evidence he sought. His search took him through all of the high valleys and much of the lower foothills. He decided, in desperation, that he would make his last sweep along the very northern fringe of the range, where the jagged foothills petered out into low slopes and finally the flat and expansive plains.

Frequent rainstorms, often accompanied by thunder and lightning, hampered his search. He spent many miserable afternoons huddled with Arcuballis under whatever shelter they could find while hail and rain battered the land. He wasn’t surprised, for spring weather was notoriously violent on the plains, yet the forced delays were extremely dispiriting.

Nearly two weeks into his search, he was working his way to the north, following a broad zigzag from east to west. The sun was high that day, so much so that he could see his shadow directly below him. Finally the shadow ebbed away toward the east, matching the sun’s descent in the west. Still he had seen no sign of his quarry.

It was near sunset when something caught his eye.

“Let’s go, old boy – down there,” he said, unconsciously voicing the command that he simultaneously relayed to Arcuballis through subtle pressure from his knees on the griffon’s tawny flanks. The creature tucked his wings and swooped low, flying along a shallow stream that marked a broad, flat valley bottom.

At one place, however, the river spilled over a ten-foot shelf of rock, creating a bright and scenic waterfall. It wasn’t the beauty of the scene that had caught Kith-Kanan’s eye, however.

The elf noticed that the brush lining the stream banks was flattened and trampled; indeed, there was a swath some twenty feet wide. The matted brush and grass extended in an arc from the streambed above the falls to the waterway.

Kith-Kanan could see no other sign of passage anywhere in this broad, meadow-lined valley, nor were there any groves of trees that might have concealed a trail. Arcuballis came to rest on a large boulder near the stream bank. Kith swiftly dismounted, leaving the griffon to preen his feathers and keep an eye alert for danger while the elf explored the terrain.

The first thing he noticed was the muddy stream bank. Higher up, where the earth was slightly drier, he saw something that made his heart pound.

Boot prints! Heavy footgear had trod here, and in great numbers. The prints indicated their wearers were heading down the valley after emerging from the streambed. Of course! The dwarves had taken great pains to keep the entrance to their kingdom a secret, and now Kith understood why there had been no road, nor even a heavily used path, leading to the north gate of Thorbardin.

The dwarves had marched along the streambed!

“Come on – back into the sky!” he shouted, rousing Arcuballis.

The creature crouched low to allow Kith to leap into the wide, deep saddle.

The elf lashed himself in with one smooth motion and kicked the griffon’s flanks sharply.

Instantly Arcuballis sprang from the rock, his powerful wings driving downward to carry them through the air. As the griffon began to climb, Kith-Kanan nudged him with his knees, guiding him low above the stream.

They glided along the course of the stream while Kith-Kanan searched the ground along either bank for more signs. Thank the gods for that waterfall!

Dusk soon cast long shadows across the valley, and Kith-Kanan realized that he would have to postpone his search until the morrow.

Nevertheless, it was with high spirits that he directed Arcuballis to land. They camped beneath an earthen overhang on the banks of the stream, and the griffon snatched nearly a dozen plump trout from the water with lighting grasps of his eagle-clawed forefeet. Kith-Kanan feasted on a pair of these while the griffon enjoyed his share.

The next morning Kith again beat the morning sun into the sky, and within an hour, he had left the foothills behind. The mountain stream he followed joined another gravel-bottomed watercourse, and here it became a placid brook, silt-bottomed and sluggish.

Here, too, there were signs that the dwarven column had emerged to march overland.

Now Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis ahead, and the griffon’s wings carried them to a lofty height. The trail became a wide rut of muddy earth, clearly visible even from a thousand feet in the air. The griffon followed the path below while the elf’s eyes scanned the horizon. For much of the day, all he could see was the long brown trail vanishing into the haze of the north.

Kith-Kanan began to worry that the dwarves had already reached Sithelbec.

Certainly they were tough and capable fighters, but even in their compact formations, they would be vulnerable to the sweeping charges of the human cavalry if they fought without the support of auxiliary forces.

It was late afternoon before he finally caught sight of his goal and knew that he was not too late. The marching column stretched as straight as a spear shaft across the plains, moving toward the north. Kith urged the griffon downward, picking up speed.

As he flew closer, he saw that the figures marched with military precision in a long column that was eight dwarves wide. How far into the distance the troops extended he could not be certain, though he flew overhead for several minutes after he had observed the tail of the column before he could even see its lead formations.

Now he was spotted from below. The tail of the column split and turned, while companies of short, stocky fighters broke to the right and left, quickly swinging into defensive postures. As Arcuballis dove lower, he saw the bearded faces, the metal helms with their plumes of feathers or hair, and, most significantly, the rank of heavy crossbows raised to fire!

He pulled back on the reins and brought Arcuballis into a sharp climb, hoping he was out of range and that the dwarves wouldn’t shoot without first identifying their target.

“Ho! Dwarves of Thorbardin!” he called, soaring about two hundred feet over the ranks of suspicious upturned faces.

“Who are you?” demanded one, a grizzled captain with a shiny helmet plumed by bright red feathers.

“Kith-Kanan! Is that you?” cried another gruff voice, one that the elf recognized.

“Dunbarth Ironthumb!” the elf shouted back, waving at the familiar figure.

Happy and relieved, he brought the griffon through a long, circling dive.

Finally Arcuballis came to rest on the ground, though the griffon pranced and squawked nervously at the troops arrayed before him.

Dunbarth Ironthumb clumped toward him, a wide smile splitting his full, gray-flecked beard. Unlike the other officers of his column, the dwarf wore a plain, unadorned breastplate and a simple steel cap.

Kith sprang from the saddle and seized the stalwart dwarf in a bear hug. “By the gods, you old goat, I thought I’d never find you!” he declared.

“Humph!” snorted Dunbarth. “If we’d wanted to be found, we would have posted signs. Still, what with the storms we’ve been dodging – floods, lightning, even a black funnel cloud! – it’s a lucky thing you did find us. Why were you looking?”

The grizzled dwarf raised his eyebrows in curiosity, waiting for Kith to speak.

“It’s a long story,” the elf explained. “I’ll save it for the campfire tonight!”

“Good enough,” grunted Dunbarth. “We’ll be making camp after another mile.” The dwarven commander paused, then snapped his fingers in sudden decision.

“To the Abyss with it! We’ll make camp here!”

Dunbarth made Kith-Kanan laugh easily. The elf commander ate the hardtack of the dwarves around the fire, and even took a draft of the cool, bitter ale that the dwarves hold so dear but which elves almost universally find to be unpleasant to the palate.

As the fire died into coals, he spoke with Dunbarth and a number of that dwarf’s officers. He told them of the mission to capture the griffons and of the forming of the Windriders. His comrades took heart from the tale of the flying cavalry that would aid them in battle.

He also described, to mutters of indignation and anger, the complicity of Than-Kar and his brother’s plans to arrest the ambassador and return him to King Hal-Waith in chains.

“Typical Theiwar treachery!” growled Dunbarth. “Never turn your back on’em, I can tell you! He never should have been entrusted with a mission of such importance!”

“Why was he?” Kith inquired. “Don’t let it go to your head, but you were always a splendid representative for your king and your people. Why did Hal-Waith send a replacement?”

Dunbarth Ironthumb shook his head and spat into the fire. “Part of it was my own fault, I admit. I wanted to go home. All that talking and diplomacy was getting on my nerves – plus, I’d never spent more than a few months on the surface at a time. I was in Silvanost for a full year, you’ll remember, not counting time on the march.”

“Indeed,” Kith-Kanan said, nodding. He remembered Tamanier Ambrodel’s remarks about that elf’s long months underground. For the first time, he began to understand the adjustment these subterranean warriors must make in order to undertake an aboveground campaign. Growing up, working and training – all their lives were spent underground.

Surprising emotion choked his throat, for suddenly he realized the depth of the commitment that had brought forth the dwarven army. He looked at Dunbarth and hoped that the dwarf understood the strength of his appreciation.

Dunbarth Ironthumb gruffly cleared his throat and continued. “We have a tricky equilibrium in Thorbardin, I’m sure you appreciate. We of the Hylar Clan control the central realms, including the Life-Tree.”

Kith-Kanan had heard of that massive structure, a cave city all of its own carved from the living stone of a monstrous stalagmite. He nodded his understanding.

“The other clans of Thorbardin all have their own realms – the Daergar, the Daewar, the Mar, and the Theiwar,” continued Dunbarth. The old dwarf sighed.

“We are a stubborn people, it is well known, and sometimes hasty to anger. In none of us are these traits so prevalent as among the Theiwar. But also there is a level of malevolence, of greed and scheming and ambition, among our paleskinned brethren that is not to be found among the higher dwarven cultures. The Theiwar are much distrusted by the rest of the clans.”

“Then why would the king appoint a Theiwar as ambassador to Silvanesti?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“Alas, they are all those things I said, but so too are the Theiwar numerous and powerful. They make up a large proportion of the kingdom’s population, and they cannot be excluded from its politics. The king must select his ambassadors, his nobles, even his high clerics from the ranks of all the clans, including the Theiwar.”

Dunbarth looked the elf squarely in the eye. “King Hal-Waith thought, mistakenly it would appear, that the crucial negotiations with the elves had been concluded with my departure from your capital. Therefore he took the chance of appointing a Theiwar to replace me, having in mind another important task for me and knowing that the Theiwar Clan would make a considerable disturbance if they were once again bypassed for such a prominent ambassadorship.

“I think you start to get the picture” Dunbarth continued. “But now to matters that lie before us, instead of behind. Do you have plans for a summer campaign?”

“The wheels are already in motion,” Kith explained. “And now that I have caught up with you, we can put the final phase of the strategy into motion.”

“Splendid!” Dunbarth beamed, all but licking his lips in anticipation.

Kith-Kanan went on to outline his battle plan, and the dwarven warrior’s eyes lit up as every detail was described.

“If you can pull it off,” he grunted in approval after Kith-Kanan had finished, “it will be a victory that the bards will sing about for years!”

They spent the rest of the evening making less momentous conversation, and around midnight, Kith-Kanan made his camp among the army of his allies. At dawn, he was up and saddling Arcuballis, preparing to leave. The dwarves were awake, too, ready to march.

“Less than three weeks to go,” said Dunbarth, with a wink.

“Don’t be late for the war!” chided Kith. Moments later, the sunlight flickered from the griffon’s wing feathers a hundred feet above the dwarven column.

Arcuballis soared into the sky, higher and higher. Yet it was many hours before Kith saw it, a blocklike shape that looked tiny and insignificant from his tremendous height. He would reach it by dark. It was Sithelbec, and for now at least, it was home.

Chapter 21

LATE SPRING,
IN THE ARMY OF ERGOTH

Long rows of makeshift litters filled the tent, and upon them, Suzine saw men with ghastly wounds – men who bled and suffered and died even before she could begin to treat them. She saw others with invisible hurts – warriors who lay still and unseeing, though often their eyes remained open and fixed. Oil lanterns sputtered from tent poles, while clerics and nurses moved among the wounded.

Men groaned and shrieked and sobbed pathetically. Others were delirious, madly babbling about pastoral surroundings they would in all likelihood never see again.

And the stench! There were the raw smells of filth, urine, and feces, and the sweltering cloud of too many men in too small an area. And there were the smells of blood, and of rotting meat. Above all, there remained an ever-pervasive odor of death.

For months, Suzine had done all that she could for the wounded, nursing them, tending their injuries, providing them what solace she could. For a time, there had been fewer and fewer wounded as those who had been injured in the battles of the winter had been healed or perished or were sent back to Ergoth.

But now it was a new season, and it seemed that the war had acquired a new ferocity. Just a few days earlier, Giarna had hurled tens of thousands of men at the walls of Sithelbec in a savage attempt to smash through the barricades. A group of the wild elves had led the way, but the elves within the fortress had fallen upon their kin and the humans who followed with a furious vengeance.

More than a thousand had perished in the fight, while these hundreds around her represented just a portion of those who had escaped with varying degrees of injuries.

Most of the suffering were humans, but there were a number of elves – those who fought against Silvanesti – and Theiwar dwarves as well. The Theiwar, under the stocky captain Kalawax, had spearheaded one assault, attempting to tunnel under the fortress walls. The elves had anticipated the maneuver and filled the tunnel, jammed tightly with dwarves, with barrels full of oil, which had then been set alight. Death had been fast and horrible.

Suzine went from cot to cot, offering water or a cool cloth upon a forehead.

She was surrounded by filth and despair, while she herself bore hurts that could not be seen but which nevertheless cut deeply into her spirit.

So Suzine felt a kinship with these hapless souls and gained what little comfort she could by caring for them and tending their hurts. She remained throughout most of this long night, knowing that Giarna was tormented by the failure of his attack, that he might seek her out. If he found her, he would hurt her as he always did, but here he would never come.

The hours of darkness passed, and gradually the camp fell into restless silence. Past midnight, even those men in the most severe pain collapsed into tentative slumber. Weary to the point of collapse, praying that Giarna already slept, she finally left the wounded to return to her own shelter.

Outside the hospital tent waited her two guards, the men-at-arms who escorted her when she moved about the camp. Actually they were a pair of the Kagonesti elves who had joined ranks with the army in the hope that it offered them a chance to gain independence for their people. Oddly, she had come to enjoy the presence of the softspoken, competent warriors in their face paint, feathers, and dark leather garb.

Suzine had wondered how such elves could rationalize their fight, since it was waged with great terror against their own people. Several times she had asked the Kagonesti about their reasons, but only once had she gotten an honest answer – from a young elf she was caring for, who had been wounded in one of the attempts to storm the fortress walls.

“My mother and father have been taken as slaves to work in the iron mines north of Silvanost,” he had told her, his voice full of bitterness. “And my family’s farm was seized by the Speaker’s troops when my father was unable to pay his taxes.”

“But to go to war against your own people,” she had wondered.

“Many of my people have been hurt by the elves of Silvanost. My people are the Kagonesti and the elves of the plains! Those who live in that crystal city of towers are no more my kin than are the dwarves of Thorbardin!”

“Do you wish to see the elven nation destroyed?”

“I only wish for the wild elves to be left alone, to regain our freedom, and to have nothing to do with the causes of governments that have made our lands a battleground!” The elf had gasped his beliefs with surprising vehemence, struggling to sit up until Suzine eased him back down.

“If the Emperor of Ergoth treats us ill after this war is won, then shall we struggle against him with the same fortitude! But until that time, the human army is our only hope of throwing off the yoke of Silvanesti oppression!”

She had been deeply disturbed by the elf’s declarations, for it did not fit her idea of Kith-Kanan to hear such tales of injustice and discrimination. Surely he didn’t know of the treatment accorded to Kagonesti by his own people!

Thus she had convinced herself of his innocence and looked upon the Kagonesti elves with pity. Those who had joined the human army she befriended and tried to ease their troubled hurts.

Now her two guards held open her tent flap for her and waited silently outside. They would stand there until dawn, when they would be relieved. As always, this knowledge gave her a sense of security, and she lay down, totally exhausted, to try to get some sleep.

But though she lay wearily upon her quilt, she couldn’t sleep. An odd sense of excitement took hold of her emotions, and suddenly she sat up, aroused and intrigued.

Instinctively she went to her mirror. Holding the crystal on her dressing table, she saw her own image first, and then she concentrated on setting her mind free.

Immediately she espied that handsome elven face, the visage she had not looked upon for nearly eight months. Her heart leaped into her throat and she stifled a gasp. It was Kith-Kanan.

His hair flew back from his face, as though tossed by a strong wind. She remembered the griffon, only this time, instead of flying away from her, he was returning!

She stared at the mirror, breathless. She should report this to her general immediately. The elven general was returning to his fortress!

Yet at the same time, she sensed a decision deep within her. The return of Kith-Kanan stirred her emotions. He looked magnificent, proud and triumphant. How unlike General Giarna! She knew she would say nothing about what she had seen.

Swiftly, guiltily, she placed the mirror back inside of its velvet-lined case.

Almost slamming the engraved ivory lid in her haste, she hid the object deep within her wardrobe trunk and returned to her bed.

Suzine had barely stretched out, still tense with excitement, when a gust of wind brushed across her face. She sensed that the flap of her tent had opened, though she could see nothing in the heavy darkness.

Instantly she felt fear. Her elven guards would stand firm against any illicit intruder, but there was one they would not stop – did not dare stop – for he held their fates in his hands.

Giarna came to her then and touched her. She felt his touch like a physical assault, a hurt that would leave no scar that could be seen.

How she hated him! She despised everything that he stood for. He was the master slayer. She hated the way he used her, used everyone around him.

But now she could bear her hatred because of the knowledge of a blond-haired elf and his proud flying steed – knowledge which, even as General Giarna took her, she found solace in, knowledge that was hers alone.

*

Kith-Kanan guided Arcuballis through the pitch-dark skies, seeking the lanterns of Sithelbec. He had passed over the thousands of campfires that marked the position of the human army, so he knew that the elven stronghold lay close before him. He needed to find the fortress before daylight so that the humans wouldn’t learn of his return to the plains. There! A light gleamed in the darkness. And another!

He urged Arcuballis downward, and the griffon swept into a shallow dive.

They circled once and saw three lights arranged in a perfect triangle, glimmering on the rooftop. That was the sign, the signal he had ordered Parnigar to use to guide him back to the barracks.

Indeed, as the griffon spread his wings to set them gently atop the tower, he saw his trusted second-in-command holding one of the lights. The other lantern-bearers were his old teacher, Kencathedrus, and the steadfast Kagonesti elf known as White-lock.

The two officers saluted smartly and then clasped their commander warmly.

“By the gods, sir, it’s good to see you again!” said Parnigar gruffly.

“It is a pleasure and a relief. We’ve been terribly worried.” Kencathedrus couldn’t help but sound a little stern.

“I have a good excuse. Now let’s get me and Arcuballis out of sight before first light. I don’t want the troops to know I’ve returned – not yet, in any event.”

The officers looked at him curiously but held their questions in check while arrangements were made with a stable master to secure Arcuballis in an enclosed stall. Meanwhile, Kith-Kanan, concealed by a flowing, heavy robe, slipped into Kencathedrus’s chamber and awaited the two elven warriors. They joined him just as dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern horizon.

Kith-Kanan told them of the quest for the griffons, describing the regiment of flying troops and the coming of the dwarves and detailing his battle plans.

“Two weeks, then?” asked Parnigar, scarcely able to contain his excitement.

“Indeed, my friend – after all this time.” Kith-Kanan understood what these elves had been through. His own ordeals had been far from cheery. Yet how difficult it must have been for these dynamic warriors to spend the winter and the spring and the first few weeks of summer cooped up within the fortress.

“Fresh regiments are on the march to Sithelbec. The Windriders will leave in a few days, making their way westward. The dwarves of Thorbardin, too, are preparing to move into position.”

“But you wish your own presence to remain secret?” asked Kencathedrus.

“Until we’re ready to attack. I don’t want the enemy to suspect any changes in our defenses. When the attack develops, I want it to be the biggest surprise they’ve ever had.”

“Hopefully the last surprise,” growled Parnigar.

“I’ll stay here for a week, then fly west at night to arrange the rendezvous with the forces arriving from Silvanost. When I return, we’ll attack. Until then, conduct your defenses as you have in the past. Just don’t allow them to gain a breach.”

“These old walls have held well,” Parnigar noted. “The humans have tried to assault them several times and always we drove them back over the heaped bodies of their dead.”

“The spring storms, in fact, did us more harm than all the human attacks,” Kencathedrus added.

“I flew through some of them,” Kith-Kanan said. “And I heard Dunbarth speak of them.”

“Hail crushed two of the barns. We lost a lot of our livestock.” Kencathedrus recounted the damage. “And a pair of tornadoes swept past, doing some damage to the outer wall.”

Parnigar chuckled grimly. “Some damage to the wooden wall – and a lot of damage to the human tents!”

“True. The destruction outside the walls was even worse than within. I have never seen weather so violent.”

“It happens every year, more or less,” Parnigar, the more experienced plainsman, explained. “Though this spring was a little fiercer than most. Old elves tell of a storm three hundred years ago when a hundred cyclones came roaring in from the west and tore up every farm within a thousand miles.”

Kith-Kanan shook his head, trying to imagine such a thing. It even dwarfed war! He turned his attention to other matters. “How about the size of the human army? Have they been able to replace their losses? Has it grown or diminished?”

“As near as we can tell —” Parnigar started to answer, but Kith-Kanan’s former teacher cut him off.

“There’s one addition they’ve had, it shames me to admit!” Kencathedrus barked. Parnigar nodded sorrowfully as the captain of the Silvanesti continued.

“Elves! From the woods! It seems they’re content to serve an army of human invaders, caring naught that they wage war against their own kingdom!” The elf, born and bred amid the towers of Silvanost, couldn’t understand such base treachery.

“I have heard this, to my surprise. Why are they party to this?” Kith-Kanan asked Parnigar.

The Wildrunner shrugged. “Some of them resent the taxes levied upon them by a far-off capital, with the debtors taken for servitude in the Clan Oakleaf mines. Others feel that trade with the humans is a good thing and opens opportunities for their children that they didn’t have before. There are thousands of elves who feel little if any loyalty to the throne.”

“Nevertheless, it is gravely disturbing,” Kith-Kanan sighed. The problem vexed him, but he saw no solution at the present.

“You’ll need some rest,” noted Kencathedrus. “In the meantime, we’ll tend to the details.”

“Of course!” Parnigar echoed.

“I knew that I could count on you!” Kith-Kanan declared, feeling overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. “May the future bring us the victory and the freedom that we have worked so hard for!”

He took the officers up on their offer of a private bunk and enjoyed the feel of a mattress beneath his body for the first time in several weeks. There was little more he could do at the moment, and he fell into a luxurious slumber that lasted for more than twelve hours.

Chapter 22

CLAN OAKLEAF

The mouth of the coal mine gaped like the maw of some insatiable beast, hungry for the bodies of the soot-blackened miners who trudged wearily between the shoring timbers to disappear into the darkness within. They marched in a long file, more than a hundred of them, guarded by a dozen whip-wielding overseers.

Sithas and Lord Quimant stood atop the steep slope that led down into the quarry. The noise from below pounded their ears. Immediately below them, a slave-powered conveyor belt carried chunks of crushed ore from a pit, where other slaves smashed the rock with picks and hammers, to the bellowing ovens of the smelting plant. There more laborers shoveled coal from huge black piles into the roaring heat of the furnaces. Beyond the smelting sheds rose the smoke-spewing stacks of the weapon smiths, where raw, hot steel was pounded into razor-edged armaments.

Some of the prisoners wore chain shackles at their ankles. “Those are the ones who have tried to escape,” Lord Quimant explained. Most simply marched along, not needing any physical restraint, for they had been broken as slaves in a deeper, more permanent sense. Each of these trudged, eyes cast downward, almost tripping over the one ahead of him in the line.

“Most of them become quite docile,” the lord continued, “after a year or two of labor. The guards encourage this. A slave who cooperates and works hard is generally left alone, while those who show rebelliousness or a reluctance to work are … disciplined.”

One of the overseers cracked his whip against the back of a slave about to enter the mines. This fellow had lagged behind, opening a gap between himself and the worker in front of him. At the flick of the lash, he cried out in pain and stumbled forward. Even from his height, Sithas saw the red welt spread across the slave’s back.

In his haste, the slave stumbled, then crawled pathetically to his feet under another flurry of lashes from the guard.

“Watch now. The rest of them will step quite lively.”

Indeed, the other slaves did hasten into the black abyss, but Sithas didn’t think such cruelty was warranted.

“Is he a human or an elf?” wondered the Speaker.

“Who – oh, the tardy one?” Quimant shrugged. “They get so covered with dust that I can’t really tell. Not that it makes much difference. We treat everybody the same here.”

“Is that wise?” Sithas was more disturbed than he thought he would be about the brutality he saw here.

Lord Quimant had attempted to dissuade Sithas from visiting the Clan Oakleaf estates and mines, yet the Speaker had been determined to take the three-day coach ride to Quimant’s family’s holdings. Now he began to wonder if perhaps Lord Quimant had been right to want to spare him the sight. He had too many disturbing reservations about the Oakleaf mines. Yet at the same time, he had to admit he needed the steel that came from these mines and the blades that were cast by the nearby smithies.

“Actually, it’s the humans who give us the most trouble. After all, the elves are here for ten or twenty years, whatever the sentence happens to be for their crime. They know they must suffer that time, and then they’ll be free.”

Indeed, the Speaker of the Stars had sentenced a number of citizens of Silvanost to such labor – for failure to pay taxes, violence or theft against a fellow elf, smuggling, and other serious transgressions. The whole issue had seemed a good deal simpler in the city, when he could simply dismiss the offending elf and rarely, if ever, think of him again.

“So this is their miserable fate,” he said quietly.

Quimant continued. “The humans, you know, are here for life – of course, a foreshortened life, in any event. And you know how reckless they are anyway.

Yes, indeed, humans are the ones who give us the most problems. The elves, if anything, help to keep them in line. We encourage their little acts of spying on one another.”

“Where do all the humans come from?” inquired Sithas. “Surely they haven’t all been sentenced by elven courts.”

“Oh, of course not! These are mostly brigands and villains, nomads who live to the north. They trouble the elves and kender of the settled lands, so we capture them and set them to work here.”

Quimant shook his head, thinking before he continued. “Imagine – a paltry four or five decades to grow up, experience romance, try to make a success of your life, and leave children behind you! It’s amazing they do so well, when you consider what little time they have to work with!”

“Let’s go back to the manor,” said Sithas, suddenly very weary of the harsh spectacle before him. Quimant had arranged for a splendid banquet after dark, and if they remained here any longer, Sithas was certain that he would lose his appetite.

*

The ride back to Silvanost seemed to Sithas to take much longer than the trip into the country. Still, he felt relieved to leave the Oakleaf estates behind.

The banquet had been a festive affair. Hermathya, the pride of Oakleaf, and her son Vanesti had been the stars of the evening. The affair lasted far into the night, yet Quimant and Sithas made an early start for the city on the following morning. Hermathya and the boy remained behind, intending to visit the clanhold for a month or two.

The first two days of the trip had seemed to drag on forever, and now they had reached the third and final day of the excursion. Sithas and Quimant traveled in the luxurious royal coach. Huge padded couches provided them with room to recline and stretch. Velvet draperies could be closed to block off dust and weather … or intrusive ears and eyes. Each of the huge wheels rested on its own spring mechanism, smoothing the potholes of the crushed gravel trail.

Eight magnificent horses, all large palominos, trotted at the head of the vehicle, their white manes and long fetlocks smoothly combed. Metal trim of pure gold outlined the shape of the enclosed cabin, which was large enough to hold eight passengers.

The two lords traveled with an escort of one hundred elven riders. Four archers, in addition to their driver, rode atop the cabin, out of sight and hearing of the pair of elves within.

Sithas sat shrouded in gloom. His mind would not focus. He considered all the progress that had been made toward a counterattack. The training of the Windriders was nearly complete. In a few days, they would fly west to begin their part in Kith-Kanan’s great attack. The final rank of elven infantry – four thousand elves of Silvanost and the nearby clanholds – had already departed.

They should reach the vicinity of Sithelbec at the same time as the Windriders.

Even these prospects did not brighten his mood. He imagined the satisfying picture of the dwarven ambassador Than-Kar captured and brought to the Speaker of the Stars in chains, but that prospect only reminded him of the prisoners of the Oakleaf mines.

Slave pits! With elven slaves! He accepted the fact that the mines were necessary. Without them, the Silvanesti wouldn’t be able to produce the vast supply of arms and weapons needed by Kith-Kanan’s army. True, there were good stockpiles of weapons, but a few weeks of intensive fighting could deplete those reserves with shocking speed.

“I wonder,” he said, surprising himself and Quimant by speaking aloud.

“What if we found another source of labor?”

The lord blinked at the Speaker in surprise. “But how? Where?”

“Listen to this.” Sithas began to envision a solution, speaking his thoughts as they occurred to him. “Kith-Kanan still needs reinforcements on the ground. By Gilean, we were only able to send him four thousand troops this summer! And that left the capital practically empty of able-bodied males.”

“If Your Majesty will remember, I cautioned against such a number. The city itself is laid bare …”

“I still have my palace guard – a thousand elves of the House Protectorate, their lives pledged to the throne.” Sithas continued. “We will form the slaves – the elven slaves – from your mines into a new company. Swear them to the Wildrunners for the duration of the war, their sentences commuted to military duty.”

“They number a thousand or more,” Quimant admitted cautiously. “They are hardened and tough. It’s perhaps true that they would make a formidable force. But you can’t close down the mines!”

“We will replace them with human prisoners captured on the battlefield!”

“We have no prisoners!”

“But Kith’s counterattack begins in less than two weeks’ time. He’ll break the siege and rout the humans, and he’s bound to take many of them as captives.” Unless Kith’s plan is a failure, he thought. Sithas wouldn’t allow himself to consider that possibility.

“It may just work,” Quimant noted, with a reluctant nod. “Indeed, if his attack is a great success, we might actually increase the number of, ah … laborers. Production could improve. We could open new mines!” He warmed to the potential of the plan.

“It’s settled, then,” Sithas agreed, feeling a great sense of relief.

“What about Than-Kar, Excellency?” inquired Quimant after several more miles of verdant woodlands slipped by.

“It will be time for retribution soon.” Sithas paused. “You know that we intercepted his spy with a message detailing the formation of the Windriders?”

“True, but we never discovered who the message was intended for.”

“It was being carried west. It was sent to the Ergoth general, I’m certain.”

Sithas was convinced that the Theiwar had joined with the humans in a bid for dominance of the dwarven nation. “I’ll keep Than-Kar in suspense until Kith is ready to attack, so he doesn’t find out that we’re onto his treachery until it’s too late for him to send another warning to the west.”

“A fine trap!” Quimant imagined the scene. “Surround the dwarves in their barracks with your guard, disarm them before they can organize, and like magic, you have him as your prisoner.”

“It’s too bad I promised to return him to King Hal-Waith,” noted Sithas. “I’d like nothing better than to send him to your coal mines.”

Suddenly they leaned toward the front of the cabin as the coach slowed. They heard the coachman calling out to the horses as he hauled back on the reins.

“Driver? What’s the delay?” inquired the Speaker, leaning out the window. He saw a rider – an elf, wearing the breastplate of the House Protectorate – galloping toward them from the front of the column.

The elf wasn’t a member of the escort, Sithas realized. He saw the foam-flecked state of the horse and the dusty, bedraggled condition of the rider, and knew that the fellow must have come a long way.

“Your Majesty!” cried the elven horseman, reining in and practically falling out of the saddle beside the speaker’s carriage door. “The city – there’s trouble! It’s the dwarves!”

“What happened?”

“We kept a watch over them as you ordered. This morning, before dawn, they suddenly burst out of the inns where they were quartered. They took the guards by surprise, killed them, and headed for the docks!”

“Killed?” Sithas was appalled – and furious. “How many?”

“Two dozen of the House Protectorate,” replied the messenger. “We’ve thrown every soldier in the city into the fray, but when I left six hours ago they were slowly fighting their way to the riverbank.”

“They need boats,” guessed Quimant. “They’re making a break for the west.”

“They sniffed out my trap,” groaned Sithas. The prospect of Than-Kar escaping the city worried him, mostly because he feared the dwarf would somehow be able to warn the humans about the Windriders.

“Can the house guards hold until we get there?” demanded the Speaker.

“I don’t know.”

“Dwarves hate the water,” observed Quimant. “They won’t try a crossing at night.”

“We can’t take that chance. Come in here,” he ordered the rider, throwing open the coach door. “Driver, to the city! As fast as you can get us there!” The gilded carriage and its escort of a hundred mounted elves thundered toward distant Silvanost, raising a wide plume of dust.

*

“They’ve made it to the river, and even now they seize boats along the wharf!” Tamanier Ambrodel greeted Sithas on the Avenue of Commerce, the wide roadway that paralleled the city’s riverfront.

“Open the royal arsenal. Have every elf who can wield a sword follow me to the river!”

“They’re already there. The battle has continued all day.” The royal procession had arrived in the city with perhaps two hours of light remaining.

Sithas leaped from the coach and took the reins of a horse that had been saddled for him on Tamanier’s orders. He quickly donned a chain mail shirt and hefted the light steel shield that bore the crest symbolizing the House of Silvanos.

In the meantime, the riders from his escort had dismounted, readying for conflict.

“They’ve barricaded themselves into two blocks of warehouses and taverns, right at the waterfront. It seems they’re having some difficulties getting their boats rigged,” explained the lord chamberlain.

“How many have we lost?” asked the speaker.

“Nearly fifty killed, most in the first few hours of the fight. Since then we’ve been content to keep them bottled up until you got here.”

“Good. Let’s root them out now.”

Surprisingly, that thought gave him a sense of grim satisfaction. “Follow me!” Sithas cried, turning the prancing stallion down the wide Avenue of Commerce. The elves of his guard followed him. He inspected detachments that held positions down several streets that led toward the wharf. Just beyond these companies, Sithas could see hastily erected wooden barricades. He imagined the white, wide eyes of Theiwar dwarves peering between the gaps of these crude defenses.

“They’re there,” a sergeant assured Sithas. “They don’t show themselves until we attack. Then they give a good accounting of themselves. Our archers have picked off more than a few of them.”

“Good. Attack when you hear the trumpets.”

Sithas himself led the band of his personal guard toward White Rose Lane before leading them down a narrow thoroughfare that was the most direct route to the waterfront.

As he had suspected, the dwarves were prepared to meet them here as well.

He saw several large fishing boats lashed to the wharf, while bands of dwarves wrestled several more into place. A sturdy line of dwarves blocked the street before him, arrayed four deep, armed with crossbows, swords, and stubby dwarven pikes. A barrier of barrels, planks, and huge coils of rope stood before them.

Behind these, Sithas saw the dwarven ambassador himself. Than-Kar, squinting in the uncomfortable glow of afternoon sunlight, cursed and shouted at his guards as they tried to pull the largest of the boats against the quay.

“Charge!” Sithas cried, his voice hoarse. “Break them where they stand!”

Three trumpeters blared his command. A roar arose from the elves gathered along the nearby streets and lanes. Sithas spurred his charger forward.

A piece of paving stone had worked its way loose over many winters of frost and springtimes of rain. Now it lay on White Rose Lane, looking for all the world like the rest of the securely cemented stones that made up the smooth surface of the street.

But when the right forehoof of Sithas’s mount came to rest for a fraction of a second upon it, the treacherous stone skidded away, twisting the hoof of the charging horse. Bones snapped in the animal’s leg, and it collapsed with a shriek of pain, hurling the Speaker of the Stars from the saddle. At the same time, a full volley of steel-tipped cross-bow quarrels whistled through the air, whirring over Sithas’s head. He took no note of the missiles as he crashed headlong into the roadway. His sword blade snapped in his hand, and his face exploded in pain. Groaning, he struggled to rise.

The elves of the royal guard, seeing their ruler collapse before them and not knowing that his fall had been caused by a loose paving stone, cried out in fury and rage. They charged forward, swords raised, and began to clash with the dwarves who blocked their path. Steel rang on steel, and shouts of agony and triumph echoed from the surrounding buildings.

Sithas felt gentle hands on his shoulders. Though he could barely move, someone turned him onto his back. With a shock, the Speaker of the Stars looked up to see that the sky had become a haze of red smoke. Then a kerchief dabbed at his head and cool water washed his brow. His eyes cleared, and he saw the anxious faces of several of his veteran guards. The red haze, he realized, had been caused by the blood that still spurted from the deep gashes on his forehead and cheeks.

“The fight,” he gasped, forcing his lips and tongue to move. “How does the fight go?”

“The dwarves stand firm,” grunted an elf, cold fury apparent in his voice.

Sithas recognized the fellow as Lashio, a longtime sergeant-major who had been one of his father’s guards.

“Go! I’ll be all right! Break them! They must not escape!”

Lashio needed no urging. Seizing his sword, he sprang toward the melee.

“Don’t try to move, Excellency. I’ve sent for the clerics!” A nervous young trooper tried to dab at Sithas’s wounds, but the Speaker angrily brushed the fellow’s ministrations away.

Sitting up, Sithas tried to ignore the throbbing in his head. He looked at the hilt of his shattered weapon, still clutched in his bleeding hand. In fury, he tossed the ruined piece away.

“Give me your sword!” he barked at the guardsman.

“B – But, Excellency … please, you’re hurt!”

“Are you in the habit of disobeying orders?” Sithas snarled.

“No, sir!” The young elf bit his lip but passed his weapon, hilt first, to the Speaker of the Stars without further delay.

Unsteadily Sithas climbed to his feet. The throbbing in his head pounded into a crescendo, and he had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out in pain. The din of the battle raging nearby was nothing compared to the pain inside his head.

His unfortunate horse lay beside him, moaning and kicking. From the grotesque angle of its foreleg, Sithas knew that the animal was beyond saving.

Deliberately he cut its throat with the sword, watching sadly as its lifeblood spurted across the pavement, splattering his boots.

Slowly his head began to clear, as if the shock of the horse’s death penetrated the haze of his own wounds. He looked down the narrow lane and saw the mass of his royal guard, still pressing against the line of Than-Kar’s bodyguards. Sithas realized that he could do nothing in that direction.

Instead, he looked up the street and saw a nearby tavern, the Thorn of the White Rose. The melee in the street raged just beyond its doors. Sithas remembered the place. It was a large establishment, with sleeping rooms and kitchen as well as the typical great room of a riverfront tavern. Instinctively he knew that it would suit his purpose.

He started to hurry toward the door, shouting to those members of his guard who were in the back of the fight, unable to reach the dwarves because of the press of their comrades and the narrow confines of the lane.

“Follow me!” he called, pushing open the door. Several dozen of his guardsmen, led by Lashio, turned to answer his call.

The startled patrons of the bar, all of whom were standing at the windows to watch the fight in the street, turned in astonishment as their blood-streaked ruler stumbled in. Sithas paid them no note, instead leading his small company past the startled bartender, through the kitchen, and out into the alley behind the place.

A lone dwarf stood several paces away, apparently guarding this route of approach. He raised his steel battleaxe and shouted a hoarse cry of alarm. It was the last sound he made as the Speaker of the Stars lunged at him, easily dodging the heavy blow of his axe to run him through.

Immediately Sithas and his small band raced from the alley onto the docks.

The dwarves fought to reach their boats as bands of the royal guardsmen surged onto the waterfront from other nearby streets and alleys.

A black-bearded dwarf confronted Sithas. The elf saw that his attacker wore a breastplate and helm of black steel, but it was his eyes that caught Sithas’s attention: wide and vacant, like the huge white circles of a madman, pure Theiwar.

Snarling his frustration – for he saw Than-Kar, behind this dwarf, scrambling into one of the boats – Sithas charged recklessly forward.

But this foe proved far more adept than the Speaker’s previous opponent.

The Theiwar’s keen-edged battle-axe bashed Sithas’s longsword aside, and only a desperate roll to the side saved the elf from losing his right forearm. He bounced to his feet in time to ward off a second blow, and for a few moments, the two combatants poked and stabbed ineffectively, each searching for an opening.

Sithas thrust again, grimly pleased to see panic flash in the Theiwar’s otherwise emotionless eyes. Only a desperate twist to the side, one that dropped the dwarf to his knees for a moment, saved him from the elf’s deadly steel. With surprising quickness, however, the dwarf sprang to his feet and parried Sithas’s next blow.

Then the elf had to ward off several hard slashes as the dwarf drove him backward for several steps. Sithas caught his heel on a coil of rope and tripped, but recovered in time to parry a savage blow. Steel rang against steel, but his strong arm held firm.

Then, behind the black-armored warrior, the dwarven ambassador raised his head and gave a sharp call. The dwarves on the dock immediately fell back toward the boats, and this gave Sithas his opening.

The elf reached down and grasped the coil of rope. With a grunt of exertion, he hurled it at the carefully retreating Theiwar. The dwarf raised his axe to knock the snakelike strands aside, and Sithas darted forward.

His blade penetrated the dwarf’s skin at the throat, just above his heavy breastplate. With a gurgling cry of pain, the warrior stumbled, his wildly staring eyes growing cold and vacant.

As his fallen foe slumped to the docks, Sithas leaped over the body, racing toward the boat where Than-Kar frantically gestured to his guards. The Speaker of the Stars reached the edge of the quay as the craft began to drift into the river. For a moment, he considered leaping after it.

A second look at the boat full of dwarves changed his mind. Such a leap would accomplish nothing but his own death. Instead, he could only watch in dismay as the Theiwar dwarf and his bodyguards, propelled by a timely breeze, made their way smoothly to the far bank of the Thon-Thalas River and the road to the west beyond.

Chapter 23

A WEEK LATER,
SITHELBEC

Kith-Kanan remained in Sithelbec for a week, keeping within the small officer’s cabin for the whole time. He met with Parnigar, Kencathedrus, and other of his trusted officers. All were cautioned to secrecy on their leader’s plan. Indeed, Kith made a point of asking Parnigar to keep the news from his wife, who was human.

Kith had plenty of time to rest as well, but his sleep was troubled by recurring dreams. Often in the past he had dreamed of Anaya, the lost love of his life, and more recently the alluring vision of Hermathya had haunted him, often banishing Anaya from his thoughts.

Now, since he had come to Sithelbec, a third woman intruded herself in his dreams – the human woman who had saved him from General Giarna when he had been captured. The trio of females waged a silent but forceful war in his subconscious. Consequently his periods of true sleep were few in number.

Finally the week was over, and in the middle of a dark night, he left the fortress upon the back of Arcuballis. This time his flight was short, a mere fifteen miles to the east. He made for the wide clearing, surrounded by a dense ring of forest, that he had established.

He was pleased when the Windriders, under the young, capable Captain Hallus, arrived on schedule. Four thousand elves of Silvanost had also camped here, providing him with substantial reinforcement. Sithas left fresh orders and flew back to the fortress before darkness broke. Few realized he had ever been gone.

It only remained to see whether Dunbarth and his dwarves would fulfill their part of the bargain, but Kith-Kanan had few worries on this score. One more day had to pass before their deadline.

*

Kencathedrus and Parnigar had done their work well. Kith-Kanan emerged from the captain’s room at sunset to find the fortress of Sithelbec alive with tension and subdued excitement. Troops cleaned their weapons or oiled their armor. The elven horsemen fed and saddled their mounts, preparing for the sortie that was coming. Archers checked their bowstrings and gathered stores of extra arrows beside their positions.

Kith-Kanan walked among them, stopping to clap a warrior on the shoulder here or to ask a quiet question there. Word of his return spread through the fortress, and the activities of the Wildrunners took on a dramatic degree of purpose and determination.

Rumors spread like smoke on the wind. The Wildrunners would make a grand attack! An elven army gathered on the plains beyond the fortress! The morale of the human army had crumbled. They would be routed if faced with a vigorous sortie!

Kith-Kanan made no attempt to dispute these rumors. Indeed, his tight-lipped demeanor served to heighten the tension and anticipation among his troops. The long siege, barely a month short of a year, had brought the Wildrunners to such a state that they would willingly risk their lives to end the confinement.

The general made his way to the high tower of the fortress. Darkness still shrouded the plains, and the elves burned no lamps, even within the walls. Their nightvision allowed them to move around and organize without illumination.

At the base of the tall structure, Kith found Parnigar, waiting as he had been ordered to, with a young elf. The latter didn’t wear the accouterments of the warrior, but instead was wrapped in a soft cloth robe. He wore doeskin boots, no helmet, and his eyes were bright as Kith-Kanan approached.

“This is Anakardain,” introduced Parnigar. The young elf saluted crisply, and Kith-Kanan acknowledged the gesture, signaling Anakardain to relax.

“Has Captain Parnigar informed you of my needs?” he inquired quickly.

“Indeed, General.” Anakardain nodded enthusiastically. “I am honored to offer my humble skills in this task.”

“Good. Let’s get to the top of the tower. Captain?” Kith turned back to Parnigar.

“Yes, sir?”

“Have Arcuballis brought to the tower top. When I need to mount, I won’t have time to come down to the stables.”

“Of course!” Parnigar turned to get the griffon, while the two elves entered the base of the tower and made their way up the long, winding stairway to the top. Anakardain, Kith sensed, wanted to ask a hundred questions, but he remained silent, which Kith-Kanan greatly appreciated at this particular moment.

They emerged onto the high tower’s parapet with the sky, still dark, looming overhead. They could see a red glow where the crimson moon, Lunitari, had just set over the western horizon. The white moon, Solinari, was a thin crescent in the east. The only other illumination above them came from millions of stars, while it seemed that an equal number of campfires burned in the great ring of the human army surrounding them.

The fortress of Sithelbec was a dark sprawl around them. The stars boded well, Kith-Kanan thought. It was important that they have a clear day for the implementation of his plan.

“This is where you desire my spell?” inquired Anakardain, finally breaking the silence.

“Yes – to the limits of your range!”

“It will be seen for twenty miles,” promised the young mage.

A shape, rising through the air, emerged from the darkness, and Anakardain flinched backward nervously as Arcuballis came to rest on the parapet beside them. Kith chuckled, easing the young elf’s tension as he took the griffon’s bridle and led him onto the high platform.

Other elves, including Parnigar and a small detachment of archers, joined them. One of the troopers carried a shining trumpet, and even through the darkness, the instrument seemed to radiate a golden sheen. A faint glimmer of rosy sky marked the eastern horizon by now, and they watched as it gradually extended over their heads. One by one the stars winked out of sight, overtaken by the greater brightness of the sun.

Now Kith-Kanan could look down and see the fortress come alive around him. The Wildrunner cavalry, three hundred proud elves, gathered before the huge wooden gates that provided the main entrance and egress from the fort. Those gates had not been opened in eleven months.

Behind the riders, companies of elven infantry gathered in a long column. Some of these collected in the alleys and passages leading to the main avenue, for there wasn’t enough open space for all of the troops, some ten thousand in number, to form up before the gates. The infantry included units of pike and longbow, plus many with sword and shield. The elves stood or paced restlessly.

The plans for the attack had been made carefully. Kencathedras himself rode a prancing charger before the gates. Though the proud veteran had wished to ride forth with the first wave of cavalry, Kith-Kanan had ordered him to remain behind until the infantry joined the fight.

This way, Kencathedrus would be able to direct each unit to begin its charge, and Kith hoped they would avoid a great traffic jam at the gates themselves.

The next hour was the longest of Kith-Kanan’s life. All of the pieces were in place, all the plans had been laid. All that they could do now was to wait, and this was perhaps the most difficult task of all.

The sun, with agonizing slowness, reached the eastern horizon and slowly crept upward into the sky. The long shadow of the high tower stretched across the closest section of the human camp west of the fortress. As the sun climbed, it dazzled everyone – humans and elves alike – with its fiery brilliance.

The general studied the human camp. Wide, muddy avenues stretched among great blocks of tents. Huge pastures, beyond the fringes of the tents, held thousands of horses. Closer to the fortress walls, a ring of ditches, trenches, and walls of wooden spikes had been erected. More piles of logs had been gathered at the fringes of the camp, dragged from the nearest forests, some ten miles away, and collected for a variety of uses.

These siege towers had been constructed over the winter. Though the humans preferred to let hunger and confinement do their work for them, obviously their patience had begun to wear thin. These great wooden structures had many portals from which archers could shower their missiles over Sithelbec’s walls. Huge wheels supported the towers, and Kith knew that eventually they would rumble forward to try to take the fortress by storm. Only the high cost of such an attack had stayed the human hand thus far.

Signs of activity began to dot the human camp as breakfast fires were lit and wagons of provisions, pulled by draft horses, struggled along the muddy lanes.

The sun crested the wall of the fortress. The elves could count on the fact that the humans to the west would be blinded by that bright orb.

The time, Kith-Kanan knew, had finally come.

“Now!”

The general barked that one word, and the trumpeter instantly raised his horn to his lips. The loud bray of the call rang from atop the tower, blaring stridently across the fortress and ringing harshly against the ears of the slowly awakening human army.

A deep rumble shook the fortress as gatesmen released the great stone counterweights and the massive fortress gates swung open with startling swiftness. Immediately the elven riders kicked their steeds, startling the horses into explosive bursts of speed. Shouts and cries of excitement and encouragement whooped through the air as the riders surged forth.

Still the trumpet brayed its command, and now the elven infantry rushed from the gates, emerging from the dust cloud raised by the stampeding horses. Kencathedrus, his lively mount prancing with excitement, indicated with his sword each company of foot soldiers, and, in turn, they followed but a pace or two behind the unit that rushed before.

In the camp of the humans, the surprise was almost palpable, jerking men from breakfast idylls, or for those who had had duty during the night, from sleep. Eleven months of placid siege-making had had the inevitable effect of lessening readiness and building complacency. Now the peace of a warm summer’s morning exploded with the brash violence of war.

The cavalry led the elven charge while the companies of foot soldiers spread into lines and advanced behind the horsemen. The lead horses reached the ditch the humans had excavated around the fortress and charged through the obstacle. Properly manned, it would have been a formidable barrier, but the elven lances pierced the few humans who stood up to challenge them as the horses charged up the steep dirt sides.

The elven lancers thundered through the ditch and then smoothly spread their column into a broad line. Lances lowered, they charged into a block of tents, spearing and trampling any humans who dared oppose them.

Trumpet calls echoed from the companies of the Ergothian Army, but to the elven commander, the tones held a frantic, hysterical quality that accurately reflected the confusion sweeping through the vast body of men. A group of swordsmen gathered, advancing shield-to-shield into the face of the thundering cavalry.

The elven horses kicked and bucked. Riders stabbed with their lances. Some of the wooden shafts splintered as their tips met the hard steel of human shields, but others drove the sharp points between the shields into soft human flesh beyond. One powerful elf thrust his lance forward so hard that it penetrated a shield, sticking the soldier beyond into the ground like an insect might be pinned to a board for display.

That rider, like so many others, drew his sword following the loss of his lance. The tight ranks of horse, crowded in among the tangle of tents and supply wagons, inevitably broke into smaller bands, and a dozen skirmishes raged through the camp.

Elven riders hacked and chopped around them as the humans scrambled to put up a defense. A rider decapitated one foe while his horse trampled another.

Three humans rushed at his shield side, and he bashed one of them to the ground. Whirling, the horse reared and kicked, knocking another of the men off his feet. As the steed’s forefeet fell, the elf’s sword, in a lightning stroke, caught the remaining footman in the throat. With a gurgling gasp, he fell, already forgotten as his killer looked for another target.

There was no shortage of victims amid that vast and teeming camp. Finally the humans started to gather with some sense of cohesion. Swordsmen collected in units of two or three hundred, giving the horsemen wide berth until they could face them in disciplined ranks. Other humans, the herdsmen, gathered the horses from the pastures and hastened to saddle them. It would be some minutes before human cavalry could respond to the attack, however.

Archers, in groups of a dozen or more, started to send their deadly missiles into the elven riders. Fortunately the horses moved so quickly and the camp around them was so disordered that this fire had little effect. Bucking, plunging horses trampled some of the canvas tents and kicked the coals from the numerous fires among the wreckage. Soon equipment, garb, and tents began to smolder, and yellow flames licked upward from much of the ruined camp.

*

“Where is that witch?” demanded General Giarna, practically spitting his anger. He spouted questions, orders, and demands at a panicked group of officers “Quickly! Get the horses saddled! Organize archers north and south of the breach! Alert the knights! Gods curse your slowness!” Beside him, Kalawax, the Theiwar commander, watched shrewdly. “This was unexpected,” he murmured.

“Perhaps. It will also be a disaster for the elves. They have given me the opportunity I have so long desired, to meet them in the open field!”

Kalawax said nothing. He merely studied the human leader, his Theiwar eyes narrowed to slits. Even so, the whites showed abnormally large to either side of his pupils.

Suzine was forgotten for the moment.

“General! General!” A mud-splattered swordsman lurched through the crowd of officers and collapsed to his knees. “We attacked the elven line at the ditch, but they stopped us! My men, all killed! Only —”

Further words choked away as the general’s black-gloved hand seized the gagging messenger. Giarna squeezed, and there was the sound of bones snapping.

Casting the corpse aside, General Giarna fixed each of his officers with a black, penetrating gaze. To a man, they were terrified to the core.

“Move!” barked the commander.

The officers scattered, each of them racing to obey.

*

More trumpets blared, and companies of humans swarmed from across the vast encampment, charging toward the elves who stood in a semicircle before the fortress gates. The companies of Wildrunner infantry, led by Kencathedrus, met the first of these attackers with shields and swords. The clash of metal and screaming of the wounded added to the cacophony. The humans around the fort still outnumbered the elves by ten to one, and Kith-Kanan had only committed a quarter of the defenders to this initial sortie.

Nevertheless, small bands of humans acquitted themselves well, hurling their bodies against the shredding blades of the elves.

“Stand firm there!” shouted Kencathedrus, urging his horse into a gap where two elves had just fallen.

The captain maneuvered his steed into the breach while his blade struck down two men who tried to force their way past him. Swords smashed against shields. Men and elves slipped in the mud and the blood. Now the ditch served as a defensive line for two of the elven companies. Cursing and slashing, the humans charged into the muddy trough, only to groan and bleed and die beneath the swords of the elves.

Elven archers showered the human troops with a deadly rain of steel-tipped hail. The ditch became a killing ground as panicked men turned to flee, tangling themselves among the fresh troops that the human commanders were casting into the fray.

Beyond the ditch, the elven cavalry of three hundred riders plunged and raced among thirty thousand humans. But more and more fires erupted, sending clouds of black smoke wafting across the field, choking noses and throats and blocking vision.

Greedy flames licked at the wall of one tent, and suddenly the blaze crackled upward. Wreckage fell inward, revealing several rows of neat casks, the cooking and lamp oil for this contingent of the human army. One of the casks began to blaze, and hot oil cascaded across the other barrels. A rush like a hot, dry wind surged from the tent, followed by a dull thud of sound. Fiery oil sprayed outward. A cloud of hellfire mushroomed into the sky, wreathed in black smoke.

Instantly the inferno spread to neighboring tents. A hundred men, doused by the liquid death, screamed and shrieked for long moments before they dropped, looking like charred wood.

From his vantage on the tower, Kith-Kanan watched the battle rage through the camp. Though chaos reigned on the field, he could see that the sortie had affected only a relatively small portion of the human camp. The enemy had begun to recover from the surprise attack, and fresh regiments surged against the elven horsemen, threatening to cut them off from any possible retreat.

“Sound the recall – now!” Kith-Kanan barked.

The trumpeter blared the signal even as Kith finished his command. The notes rang across the field, and the elven riders immediately turned back toward the gates.

At the ditch, Kencathedrus and his men stood firm. A thousand human bodies filled the trench, and there wasn’t an elven blade that didn’t drip with gore. The infantry opened a gap in their line for the riders to thunder through as an increasing rain of arrows held the humans at bay.

Even as this was happening, Kith turned his eyes to the south, looking along the horizon for some sign that the next phase of his strategy could begin. The time was ripe.

There! He saw a row of banners fluttering above the gray, and soon he discerned movement.

“The dwarves of Thorbardin!” he cried, pointing.

The dwarves came on in a broad line, trotting as fast as their stocky legs could carry them. A throaty roar burst from their throats, and the legion of Thorbardin hastened into a charge.

The humans were pressing the elven forces at the gates of Sithelbec. From his vantage, Kith-Kanan watched with grim satisfaction as his Wildrunners managed to beat back attack after attack. To the south, some of the humans had now realized the threat lumbering forward against their backs.

*

“Dwarves!” The cry raced through the human camp, quickly reaching General Giarna. Kalawax, beside him, gaped in astonishment, his already pallid complexion growing even more pale.

“The dwarven legion! Hylar, from Thorbardin!” More reports, from the throats of hoarse messengers, were brought back to the general in his command tent. “They drive against the south!”

“I knew nothing of this!” squawked Kalawax, unconsciously backing away from Giarna. The dwarf’s earlier aplomb had vanished with this new turn of events. “My spies have been tricked. Our agents in Silvanost have worked hard to prevent this!”

“You have failed!”

Giarna’s words carried with them a sentence of doom. His eyes, black and yawning, seemed to rage for a moment with a deep, parasitic fire.

His fist lashed out, pummeling the Theiwar on the side of his head. But this was no ordinary blow. It connected squarely, and the dwarf’s thick skull erupted. The general’s other hand seized the corpse by the neck. His face flushed, and his eyes flared with an insane pleasure. In another moment, he cast the Theiwar – now a dried and shriveled husk – to the side.

Kalawax was already forgotten as the general absently wiped his hand on his cloak, focusing on the problem of how to stem this most recent attack.

*

“For Thorbardin! For the king!” A few human companies of swordsmen raced to block the surging waves of dwarves, but most of the Army of Ergoth was preoccupied with the elven sortie. Dunbarth Ironthumb led the way. A man raised a sword, holding his shield across his chest, and then chopped savagely downward at the dwarven commander. Dunbarth’s battle-axe, held high, deflected the blow with a ringing clash. In the next instant, the dwarven veteran slashed his weapon through a vicious swing, cutting underneath the human’s shield. The man shrieked in agony as the axe sliced open his belly.

“Charge! Full speed! To the tents!”

Dunbarth barked the commands, and the dwarves renewed their advance.

Those humans who tried to stand in the way quickly perished, while others dropped their weapons and fled. Some of these escaped, while others fell beneath the volley of crossbow fire leveled by the dwarven missile troops.

Dunbarth led a detachment along a row of tents, chopping at the guy lines of each, watching the rude shelters collapse like wilting flowers. They came upon a supply compound, where great pots of stew had been abandoned, still simmering. Seizing everything flammable, they tossed weapons and harnesses, even carts and wagons, onto the coals. Quickly searing tongues of flame licked upward, igniting the equipment and marking the spot of the dwarven advance.

“Onward!” cried Dunbarth, and again the dwarves moved toward Sithelbec.

The human troops didn’t react quickly to this new threat. Small bands perished as the stocky Hylar swept around them, and the waves of the attackers gave little time for the humans to muster a stand.

The sheer numbers of the defenders gave the humans an edge. Soon Dunbarth found some brave human contesting every forward step he tried to take. His axe rose and fell, and many an Ergothian veteran perished beneath that gory blade. But more and more of the humans stepped up.

“Stand firm!” cried Ironthumb.

Now the dwarves hacked and chopped in tight formation in the middle of a devastated human camp. A thousand men rushed against their left, met by the sharp clunk of crossbows and a volley of steel-tipped death. Hundreds fell, pierced by the missiles, and others turned to flee.

Swords met axes in five thousand duels to the death. The dwarves fought with courage and discipline, holding their ranks tight. They maimed and killed with brutal efficiency, but they were well matched by the courageous humans who pressed them in such great numbers.

But it was those numbers that would have to tell the tale. Slowly Dunbarth’s force contracted into a great ring. Amid the cries and the clanging and the shouting and screaming, Dunbarth slowly realized the tactical situation.

The dwarven legion was surrounded.

Chapter 24

LATE MORNING,
BATTLE OF SITHELBEC

Kith-Kanan watched the courageous stand of the dwarves with a lump of admiration burning in his throat. Dunbarth’s magnificent charge had taken the pressure off the elves at the gate, and now Kencathedrus’s force could surge forward again, expanding their perimeter against the distracted humans.

Attacked from two sides, the Army of Ergoth wavered and twitched like a huge but indecisive beast set upon by a swarm of stinging pests. Great masses of human foot soldiers stood idle, waiting for orders while their comrades perished in desperate battles a few hundred yards away.

But now a sense of purpose seemed to settle across the humans. The tens of thousands of horses had been saddled. The riders, especially the light horsemen of General Giarna’s northern wing, had reached their steeds and were ready for battle.

Unlike the humans on foot, however, the cavalry did not race piecemeal into the fray, setting themselves up for defeat. Instead, they collected into companies and regiments and finally into massive columns. The riders surged around the outside of the melee, gathering and positioning themselves for one crucial charge.

The elves of the sortie force could save themselves by a quick return to the fortress. The dwarves, however, were isolated amid the wreckage of the south camp and had no such fallback. Lacking pikes, they would be virtually helpless against the onslaught Giarna was almost ready to unleash.

Kith-Kanan turned to Anakardain, who had remained at his side throughout the battle. “Now! Give the signal!” commanded the general.

The elven mage pointed a finger toward the sky. “Exceriate! Pyros, lofti!” he cried.

Instantly a crackling shaft of blue light erupted from his pointing hand, hissing upward amid a trail of sparks. Even in the bright sunlight, the bolt of magic stood out clearly, visible to all on the battlefield.

And, Kith devoutly hoped, to those who waited some twenty miles away – waited for this very signal.

For several minutes after the flare, the battle raged, unchecked. Nor was there any sign that might alter this, though Kith-Kanan kept his eyes glued to the eastern horizon. The sun hung midway between that horizon and the zenith of noon, though it seemed impossible that the battle had raged for barely three hours.

Now the human cavalry galloped from the pastures, an impressive mass of horsemen under the tight control of a skilled commander. They surged around the trampled encampment, veering toward the embattled dwarves.

Finally Kith-Kanan, still staring to the east, saw what he had been looking for: a line of tiny winged figures, a hundred feet above the ground and heading fast in this direction. Sunlight glinted from shiny steel helms and sparkled from deadly lance heads.

“The charge – sound it again!” barked the elven general to his trumpeter.

Another blare sounded across the field, and for a moment, the momentum of battle paused. Humans looked upward in surprise. Their officers, in particular, were puzzled by the command. The elven and dwarven troops, hard pressed now, seemed to be in no position to execute an offensive.

“Again – the charge!”

Again and again the call brayed forth.

Kith-Kanan watched the Windriders as the soaring line approached nearer and nearer, within two or three miles of the field. The elven general picked up his shield and checked to see that his sword hung loosely in his scabbard.

“Take over the command,” Kith told Parnigar, at the same time grabbing the reins of Arcuballis and stepping to the griffon’s side.

The Wildrunner captain stared at his general. “Surely you’re not going out there! We need you here. Your plan is working! Don’t jeopardize it now!”

Kith shook his head, casting off the arguments. “The plan has a life of its own now. If it fails, sound the recall and bring the elves back into the fortress.

Otherwise, continue to give them support from the archers on the walls – and be ready to bring the rest of them out if the humans start to break.”

“But, General!” Parnigar’s next objections died away as Kith-Kanan swung into his high leather saddle. Obviously he would not be deterred from his actions.

“Good luck to you,” finished the captain, grimly looking over the field where thousands of humans still surged in attack.

“Luck has been with us so far,” Kith replied. “May she stay with us just for a little longer.”

Now the Windriders, still flying in their long, thin ranks, slowly nosed into shallow dives. They hadn’t yet been sighted by the humans on the ground, who had no reason to expect attack from the air.

Again the bugler brayed his charge. Arcuballis sprang from the tower, his powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan into line with the other Windriders. At this cue, the griffons shrieked their harsh challenge, a jarring noise that cut cleanly through the chaos of the battle. Talons extended, beaks gaping, they howled downward from the heavens.

The whole pulse of the battle ceased as the shocking vision swept lower. Men, elves, and dwarves alike gaped upward.

Cries of alarm and terror swept through the human ranks. Units of men who had until now maneuvered in tightly disciplined formations suddenly scattered into uncontrolled mobs. The shadows of the griffons passed across the field, and again the beasts shrilled their savage war cries.

If the reaction by the humans to the sudden attack was dramatic and pronounced, the effect upon the horses was profound. At the first sound of the approaching griffons, all cohesion vanished from the cavalry units. Horses bucked and pitched, whinnied and shrieked.

The Windriders passed over the entire battlefield a hundred feet above the ground. Occasionally a human archer had the presence of mind to launch an arrow upward, but these missiles always trailed their targets by great distances before arcing back to earth, to land as often as not among the human ranks.

Elven archers along the walls of Sithelbec showered their stunned opponents with renewed volleys as their captains sensed the battle’s decisive moment.

“Again – once back, and we’ll take to the ground,” Kith-Kanan cried, edging Arcuballis into a dive. The unit followed, and each griffon tucked its left wing, diving steeply and turning sharply to the left.

The creatures swung through a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, losing about sixty feet of height. Now the cries of the elven riders joined those of the griffons as they raced over the human army. Bugles blared from the fortress walls and towers and from the ranks of the sortie force. Throaty dwarven cheers erupted from Dunbarth’s veterans, and the legion of Thorbardin quickly broke its defensive position, charging into the panicked humans surrounding them.

The elves of the sortie force, too, charged through the ditch into the humans who had been pressing them with such intensity. Columns of elves burst from the open gates of Sithelbec, reinforcing their comrades.

Kith-Kanan selected a level field, a wide area of pasture between the western and southern human camps, for a landing site and brought the griffons to earth there. His first target would be the brigade of armored knights that were struggling to regain control of their mounts.

The griffons barely slowed as they tucked their wings and sprang forward, propelled by their powerful leonine hindquarters while their deadly foreclaws reached forward as if eager to shred the flesh of the foe.

The single line of griffons, their riders still holding their lances forward, ripped into the bucking, heaving mass of panicked horses. No charge of plate-mailed knights ever struck with such killing force. Lances punctured armor and horses fell, gored by the claws of the savage griffons, and then the elven swords struck home.

Kith-Kanan buried his lance in the chest of a black-armored knight as the human’s horse bucked in terror. He couldn’t see the man’s face behind the closed shield of his dark helmet, but the steel tip of his weapon erupted from his victim’s back in a shower of blood. Arcuballis sprang, his claws tearing away the saddle of the heavy war-horse as the terrified animal crashed to the ground.

His lance torn away by the force of the charge, Kith drew his sword. A knight plunged nearby, desperately struggling to control his mount; Kith-Kanan stabbed him in the back. Another armored warrior, on foot and wielding a massive morning star, swung the spiked ball at Arcuballis. The griffon reared back and then pounced on the man, tearing out his throat with a single powerful strike of his beak.

A chaotic jumble of shrieks and howls and moans surged around Kith, mingling with the pounding of hooves and the clash of sharp steel against plate mail. But even the superior armor of the humans couldn’t save them. With no control over their mounts, they could do little more than hold on and try to escape the maelstrom of death. Very few of them made it.

“To the air!” Kith cried, spurring Arcuballis into a powerful upward leap.

Shattered knights covered the ground below them while the thundering mass of their horses stampeded right through a line of human archers who couldn’t get out of the way in time. All around Kith-Kanan, the other griffons sprang into the air, and with regal grace, the Windriders once again soared across the field. Slowly they climbed, forming again into a long line, flying abreast.

As the griffon’s wings carried him upward, Kith looked across the field. In the distance rolled great clouds of dust. Some twenty thousand horses had already stampeded away from the battle, and these plumes marked their paths of flight. Human infantry fled from the tight ranks of the dwarven legion, while the elven reinforcements drove terrified humans into panic. Many of the enemy had dropped their weapons and thrown up their hands, pleading and begging for mercy.

Kith-Kanan veered toward the Ergothian foot soldiers, the line of Windriders following in precise formation. He took up his bow and carefully nocked an arrow. He let the missile fly, watching it dart downward and penetrate the shoulder of one of the foot soldiers. The fellow toppled forward, his helmet rolling in the mud, and Kith-Kanan got a jolt when he espied the long blond hair cascading around his body. Other arrows found targets among this company as the griffons passed overhead, and the general noticed with surprise these other men, too, all had blond hair.

One of them turned and launched an arrow upward, and a nearby griffon shrieked, pierced through the wing. The animal’s limb collapsed, and the beast tipped suddenly to the side, plummeting to the earth among the Ergothian archers. The rider died from the force of the crash, but this didn’t stop the soldiers from hacking and chopping at his body until only a gory mess remained.

Kith shot another arrow, and a third, watching grimly as each took the life of one of these blond savages. Only when the humans had been riddled with losses did the Windriders consider the death of their comrade avenged. As they soared away, Kith-Kanan was struck by the narrow face of one of his victims, lying faceup in the mud. Diving lower, he saw a pointed ear and blond hair.

Elves! His own people fighting for the Army of the Emperor of Ergoth!

Growling in anger, he urged Arcuballis upward, the rest of his company following. With terrible purpose, he looked across the mud-and-blood-strewn field for an appropriate target.

He saw one group of horsemen, perhaps two thousand strong, that had rallied around a streaming silver banner – the ensign of General Giarna himself, Kith knew. Instantly he veered toward this unit as the general was urging his reluctant troops into a renewed charge. The griffons flew low, no more than ten feet off the ground, and the creatures shrilled their coming.

Unaffected by the curses of their commanding general, the human riders allowed their horses to turn and scatter, unwilling to face the griffon cavalry.

Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis onward, seeking the general himself, but the man had vanished among the dusty, panicked ranks of his troops. He might already have been trampled to death, for all Kith-Kanan knew.

The Windriders flew across the field, landing and attacking here and there, wherever a pocket of the human army seemed willing to make a stand. Often the mere appearance of the savage creatures was enough to break a formation, while occasionally they crashed into the defending ranks and the griffons tore with talons and beaks while their elven riders chopped and hacked with their lethal weapons.

The elves on the ground and their dwarven allies raced across the field, encouraging the total rout of the human army. More and more of the humans held up their hands in surrender as they concluded that escape was impossible.

Many of the horses were stampeded, riderless, away from the field, lost to the army for the foreseeable future. A great, streaming column of refugees – once a proud army but now a mass of panicked, terrified, and defeated men – choked the few roads and scarred new trails across the prairie grasslands.

When the Windriders finally came to earth before the gates of Sithelbec, they landed only because there were no more enemies left to fight. Huge columns of human prisoners, guarded by the watchful eyes of elven archers and dwarven axemen, stood listlessly along the walls of the fortress. Amidst the smoke and chaos of the camps, detachments of the Wildrunners poked and searched, uncovering more prisoners and marking stockpiles of supplies.

“General, come quickly!” Kith-Kanan looked up at the cry, seeing a young captain approaching. The elf’s face was pale, and he gestured toward a place on the field.

“What is it?” Sensing the urgency in the young soldier’s request, Kith hurried behind him. In moments, he knew the reason for the officer’s demeanor.

He found Kencathedrus lying among the bodies of a dozen humans. The old elf’s body bled from numerous ugly wounds.

“We beat them today,” gasped Kith-Kanan’s former teacher and weaponmaster, managing a weak smile.

“Didn’t we, though?” The general took his friend’s head in his hands, looking toward the nearby officer. “Get the cleric!” he hissed.

“He’s been here,” objected Kencathedrus. Kith-Kanan could read the result in the wounded elf’s eyes: There was nothing that even a cleric could do.

“I’ve lived to see this day. It makes my life as a warrior complete. The war is all but won. You must pursue them now. Don’t let them escape!”

Kencathedrus gripped Kith’s arm with surprising strength, nearly raising himself up from the ground. “Promise me,” he gasped. “You will not let them escape!”

“I promise!” whispered the general. He cradled Kencathedrus’s head for several minutes, even though he knew that he was dead.

A messenger – a Kagonesti scout in full face paint – trotted up to Kith-Kanan to make a report. “General, we have reports of enemy activity in the north camp.”

That part of the huge circular human camp had seen the least fighting. Kith nodded at the scout and gently laid Kencathedrus’s body on the ground. He rose and called to a nearby sergeant-major.

“Take three companies and sweep through the north camp,” he ordered. He remembered, too, that General Giarna and his horsemen had escaped in that direction. He gestured to several of his Windriders. “Follow me.”

Chapter 25

AFTERNOON,
BATTLE OF SITHELBEC

Suzine watched the battle in her glass. Here in her tent in the northern camp, she did not feel the brunt of battle so heavily. Though the men here had raced to the fight and suffered the same fate as the rest of the army, the camp itself had not yet experienced the wholesale destruction that marked the south and west camps of the humans.

She had seen the Windriders soaring from the east, had watched their inexorable and unsuspected approach against her general’s army, and she had smiled. Her face and her body still burned from Giarna’s assaults, and her loathing for him had crystallized into hatred.

Thus when the elf commander had led the attack that sundered the army around her, she had felt a sense of joy, not dismay, as if Kith-Kanan had flown with no other purpose than to effect her own personal rescue. Calmly she had watched the battle rage, following the elven general in her mirror.

When he led the charge against Giarna’s remnant of the great cavalry brigades, she had held her breath, part of her hoping he might come upon the human general and strike him dead, another part wishing that Giarna would simply flee and leave the rewards of victory to the elven forces. Even when her elven guards fled from their posts, she had taken no note.

Now she heard marching outside her tent as the elves of the sortie force moved through the north camp looking for human survivors. Suzine heard some men surrender, pleading for their lives; she heard others attack with taunts and curses, and finally screams and moans as they fell.

The battle coursed around her, washing the tent city in smoke and flame and pain and blood. But still Suzine remained within her tent, her eyes fixed upon the golden-haired figure in her mirror. She watched Kith-Kanan, mounted upon the leaping, clawing figure of his great beast, slash and cut his way through the humans who tried to challenge him. She saw that the elven attack moved steadily closer to her. Now the Wildrunners fought a mere thousand yards to the south of her tent.

“Come to me, my warrior!” she breathed.

She willed him to come to her with all of her heart, watching in her glass as Kith-Kanan hacked the head from a burly human axeman.

“I am here!” Suzine desperately wanted Kith-Kanan to sense her presence, her desire, her – did she dare believe it – love.

The opening of her tent flap interrupted her reverie. It was him! It must be! Her heart afire, she whirled, and only when she saw Giarna standing there did brutal reality shatter her illusion. As for Giarna, he looked past her violently, at the image of the elven commander in the mirror.

The human general stepped toward her, his face a mask of fury, more like a beast’s than a man’s. It sent an icy blade of fear into the pit of Suzine’s stomach.

When Giarna reached her and seized her arms, each in one bone-crushing hand, that blade of fear twisted and slashed within her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think; she could only stare into those wide, maddened eyes, the lips flecked with spittle, stretched taut to reveal teeth that seemed to hunger for her soul.

“You betrayed me!” he snarled, throwing her roughly to the ground. “Where did these flying beasts come from? How long have they been waiting, ready to strike?” He knelt and punched her roughly, splitting her lip.

He glanced at the mirror on the table. Now, her concentration broken, the image of Kith-Kanan had faded, but the truth of her obsession had been revealed.

The general’s black-gauntleted hand pulled a dagger from his belt, and he pressed it between her breasts, the point puncturing her gown and then brushing the skin beneath it.

“No,” he said, at the very moment when she expected to die. “That would be too merciful, too cheap a price for your treachery.”

He stood and glared down at her. Every instinct of her body told her to scramble to her feet, to fight him or to run! But his black eyes seemed to hypnotize her to the ground, and she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Up, slut!” he growled, kicking her sharply in the ribs and then reaching down to seize her long red hair. He pulled her to her knees, and she winced, closing her eyes, expecting another blow to her face.

Then she sensed a change within the small confines of the tent, a sudden wash of air against her face … the increase in the sounds of battle beyond...

Giarna cast her aside, and she looked at the door to the tent.

There he was!

Kith-Kanan stood in the opened tent flap. Beyond him lay bodies on the ground, and she caught a glimpse of men and elves hacking against each other with swords and axes. The tents in her line of view smoked and smoldered, some spewing orange flame.

The golden-haired elf stepped boldly into the darkened tent, his steel longsword extended before him. He spoke harshly, his blade and his words directed at the human general.

“Surrender, human, or die!” Kith-Kanan, obviously not recognizing the commander of the great human army in the semidarkness of the tent, took another step toward Giarna.

The human general, his dagger still in his hand and his body trembling with rage, stared soundlessly at the elf for a moment. Kith-Kanan squinted and crouched slightly, ready for close-quarter fighting. As he studied his opponent, recognition dawned, memories of that day of captivity a year before, when the battle had gone against the elves.

“It’s you,” the elf whispered.

“And it is fitting that you come to me now,” replied the human general, his voice a strangled, triumphant snarl. “You will not live to enjoy the fruits of your victory!”

In a flash of motion, the man’s hand whipped upward. In the same instant, he reversed his grip on the dagger, flipping its hilt from his hand and catching the tip of the foot-long blade in his fingertips.

“Look out!” Suzine screamed, suddenly finding her voice.

Giarna’s hand lashed out, flinging the knife toward Kith’s throat. Like a silver streak, the blade flashed through the air, true toward its mark.

Kith-Kanan couldn’t evade the throw, but he could parry it. His wrist twitched, a barely perceptible movement that swung the tip of his sword through an arc of perhaps six inches. That was enough; the longsword hit the knife with a sharp clink of metal, and the smaller blade flipped over the elf’s shoulder to strike the tent wall and fall harmlessly to the ground.

Suzine scrambled away from Giarna as the man drew his sword and rushed toward the elf. Kith-Kanan, eight inches shorter and perhaps a hundred pounds lighter than the human general, met the charge squarely. The two blades clashed with a force that rang like cymbals in the confines of the tent. The elf took one step back to absorb the momentum of the attack, but Giarna was stopped in his tracks.

The two combatants circled, each totally focused on the other, looking for the slightest hint, the twitch of an eye or a minute shifting of a shoulder, that would warn the other of an intended lunge.

They slashed at each other, then darted out of the way and just as quickly slashed again. Neither bore a shield. Consummate swordsmen both, they worked their way around the spacious tent. Kith-Kanan tipped a dressing screen in front of the human. The man leaped over it. Giarna drove the elf backward, hoping to trip him on Suzine’s cot. Kith sensed the threat and sprang to the rear, clearing the obstacle and then darting to the side, driving against the human’s flank.

Again the man parried, and the two warriors continued to circle, each conserving his strength, neither showing the weariness of the long day’s battle.

Where Giarna’s face was a mask of twisted hatred, however, the elf’s remained an image of cool, studied detachment. The man struck with power that the elf could not hope to match, so Kith-Kanan had to rely on skill and control for each parry, each lightning thrust of his own.

The woman glanced back and forth, her eyes wide with horror alternating with hope.

They were too equal in skill, she saw, and given this fact, Giarna’s size and strength inevitably would vanquish the elf. An increasing sense of desperation marked Kith’s parries and attacks. Once he stumbled and Suzine screamed.

Only Giarna’s heavy boot, as it caught in a fold of her rug, prevented his blade from tearing through the elf’s heart.

Nevertheless, he managed to cut a slash in Kith’s side, and the elf grunted in pain as he regained his balance. Suzine saw a tightness in his expression that hadn’t been there before. It could be called the beginnings of fear. Once he glanced toward the door, as if he hoped for assistance from that quarter.

Only when he did that did Suzine notice the sudden quiet that seemed to have descended across the camp. The fight outside had moved beyond them.

Kith-Kanan had been left behind.

She saw Giarna drive Kith backward with a series of ringing blows, and she knew she had to do something! Kith sprang forward, desperation apparent in each of his swinging slashes. Giarna ducked away from each blow, giving ground as he searched for the fatal opening.

There! The elf overreached himself, leaning too far forward in an attempt to draw blood from his elusive target.

Giarna’s sword came up, its tip glistening from Kith’s moist blood, held for just a moment as the elf followed through with his reckless swing.

Kith tried to twist away, raising his left arm so that he would take the wound in his shoulder, but Giarna simply raised that deadly spike and drove it toward the elf’s neck.

The sound of shattering glass was the next thing that Suzine knew. She didn’t understand how she came to hold the frame of her mirror in her hands, didn’t comprehend the shards of glass scattered across the rug. More glass, she saw, glinted upon Giarna’s shoulders. Blood spurted from long slashes in his scalp.

The human leader staggered, reeling from the blow to his head, as Kith-Kanan twisted away. He looked at the woman, gratitude shining in his eyes – or was that something deeper, more profound, more lasting, that she wished to see there?

The elf’s blade came up, poised to strike, as Giarna shook his head and cursed, wiping the blood from his eyes. His back to the door, he stared at the elf and the woman, his face once again distorted by his monstrous hatred.

Kith-Kanan stepped to Suzine’s side, sensing the man’s hatred and protecting her from any sudden attack.

But there would be no attack. Groggy, bleeding, surrounded by enemies, Giarna made a more pragmatic decision. With one last burning look at the pair, he turned and darted through the tent flap.

Kith-Kanan started forward but stopped when he felt Suzine’s hand on his arm.

“Wait’” she said softly. She touched the bloodstained tunic at his side, where Giarna’s sword had cut him.

“You’re hurt. Here, let me tend your wound.”

The weariness of the great battle finally arose within Kith-Kanan as he lay upon the bed. For the first time in more months than he cared to remember, he felt a gentle sensation of peace.

*

The war almost ceased to exist for Kith-Kanan. It became distant and unreal. His wound wasn’t serious, and the woman who tended him was not only beautiful but also had been haunting his dreams for weeks.

As the Army of Ergoth scattered, Parnigar took command of the pursuit, skillfully massing the Wildrunners to attack concentrations of the enemy wherever they could be found. Kith-Kanan was left to recuperate and paid little attention to his lieutenant’s reports of progress.

They all knew the humans were beaten. It would be a matter of weeks, perhaps months now, before they were driven back across the border of their own empire. Windriders sailed over the plains, dwarves and elves marched, and elven cavalry galloped at will.

And back at the nearly abandoned fortress, the commander of this great army was falling in love.

Chapter 26

LATE SUMMER,
YEAR OF THE BEAR

Already the cool winds presaging autumn swirled northward from the Courrain Ocean, causing the trees of the great forestlands to discard their leaves and prepare for the long dormancy of winter. The elves of Silvanesti felt the winds, too, throughout the towns and estates and even in the great capital of Silvanost.

The city was alive with the great jubilation of victory. Word from the front told of the rout of the human army. Kith-Kanan’s army was on the offensive.

The elven general had sent columns of Wildrunners marching swiftly across the plains, fighting the pockets of human resistance.

The dwarven league did its part against the humans, while the Windriders swept down from the skies, shattering the once-proud Ergothian regiments, capturing or killing hundreds of humans, and scattering the rest to the four winds. Most bands of desperate survivors sought nothing more than flight back to the borders of Ergoth.

Great camps of human prisoners – tens of thousands – now littered the plains.

Many of these Kith-Kanan sent to the east upon the orders of his brother, where the human prisoners were condemned to spend their lives in the Clan Oakleaf mines. Others were assigned to rebuild and strengthen the fortress of Sithelbec and repair the damage to settlements and villages ravaged by two years of war.

These should be the greatest days of my life, Sithas brooded over the reports from his great emerald throne. He was reluctant to leave the Hall of Audience for the brightness of the garden or the city despite the beautiful late afternoon sky.

An hour ago he had ordered his courtiers and nobles to leave him alone. He was disconsolate, despite the most recent missive from Kith-Kanan – borne by a Windrider courier, the news less than a week old – which had continued favorable reports of victory.

Perhaps he would have been relieved to talk to Lord Quimant – no one else seemed to understand the pressures of his office – but that nobleman had left the city more than a week earlier to assist in the administration of the new prisoner slaves at his family’s mines in the north. He had no clear idea when he would return.

Sithas’s mind ran over his brother’s latest communication. Kith reported that the central wing of the Army of Ergoth, which had tried to march home by the shortest and most direct route, had since ceased to exist. The entire force had been eradicated when the Wildrunners gathered and attacked the central wing, causing massive casualties.

There was no longer much of a southern wing, either. Its soldiers had suffered the highest toll in the initial counterattack. And the smaller northern wing, with its thousands of light horsemen and fast-moving infantry under the shrewd General Giarna, had been scattered into fragments that desperately sought refuge among the clumps of forest and rough country that fringed the plains.

Why, then, could Sithas not share in the exultation of the Silvanost citizenry?

Perhaps because reports had been confirmed of Theiwar dwarves joining with the fleeing remnants of Giarna’s force, even though their cousins, the Hylar, fought on the side of the elves. Sithas had no doubt that the Theiwar were led by the treacherous general and ambassador Than-Kar. Such internecine dwarven politics served to further confuse the purposes of this war.

Neither was there any doubt now that large numbers of renegade elves fought on the side of Ergoth. Elves and dwarves and humans fighting against elves and dwarves!

Quimant continued to advocate the hiring of human mercenaries to further reinforce Kith-Kanan’s armies. This was a step that Sithas was not prepared to take. And yet …

The immediate victory didn’t seem to offer an end to the differences among the elves. Would Silvanesti ever be pure again? Would involvement in this war break down the barriers that separated elvenkind from the rest of Krynn?

Even the name of the war itself, a name he had heard uttered in the streets of the city, even murmured from the lips of polite society, underscored his anguish. Following the summer’s battles and the lists of the dead, it had become the universal sobriquet for the war, too commonly known to be changed even by the decree of the Speaker of the Stars.

The Kinslayer War.

The name left a bitter taste on his tongue, for to Sithas, it represented all that was wrong about the cause they fought against. Blind, misguided elves throwing in their lot with the human enemy – they forfeited their right to any kinship!

More serious to Sithas, in a personal sense, was the nasty rumor now making the rounds of the city, a preposterous allegation. The scurrilous gossip had it that Kith-Kanan himself had taken a human woman for a consort! No one, of course, dared present this news to Sithas directly, but he knew that the others believed and whispered the ludicrous tale.

He had ordered members of the House Protectorate to disguise themselves as workers and artisans and to enter the taverns and inns frequented by the citizens. They were to listen carefully, and if they overheard anyone passing this rumor, the culprit was to be immediately arrested and brought to the palace for questioning.

“Pa-pa?”

The voice brightened his mood as nothing else could. Sithas turned to see Vanesti toddling toward him, carrying – as always – the wooden sword Kith-Kanan had made for him before departing for Sithelbec.

“Come here, you,” the Speaker of the Stars said, kneeling before the throne and throwing wide his arms.

“Pa-pa!” Vanesti, his beaming face framed by long golden curls, hastened his pace and immediately toppled forward, landing on his face.

Sithas scooped the tyke into his arms and held him, patting him on the back until his crying ceased. “There, there. It doesn’t hurt so bad, does it?” he soothed.

“Ow!” objected the youth, rubbing his nose.

Sithas chuckled. Still carrying his son, he started toward the royal door that led to the

Gardens of Astarin.

*

Quimant returned two days later and came to see Sithas as the Speaker sat alone in the Hall of Audience.

“Your plan has worked miracles!” reported the lord. If he noticed his ruler’s melancholy air, he didn’t call attention to it. “We have tripled the number of slaves and can work the mines around the clock now. In addition, the freed elves have marched off to the plains. They make a very formidable company indeed!”

“The war may be over by the time they reach the battlefield,” sighed Sithas.

“Perhaps I have simply freed a number of malefactors for nothing.”

Quimant shook his head. “I’ve heard the reports. Even though the Wildrunners are pushing the humans westward, I wouldn’t expect a complete end to the war before next summer.”

“Surely you don’t think the Army of Ergoth will reassemble now that the Windriders are pursuing them?”

“Not reassemble, no, but they will break into small bands. Kith-Kanan’s army will find many of them, but not all. Yes, Excellency, I fear we will still have an enemy to contend with a year from now – perhaps even longer.”

Sithas cast off the notion as unthinkable. Before the debate proceeded further, however, a guard appeared at the hall’s door.

“What is it?” inquired the Speaker.

“Lashio has captured a fellow, a stonemason, in the city. He was spreading the – er, the tale about General Kith-Kanan.”

Sithas bolted upright in his throne. “Bring him to me! And summon the stablemaster. Tell him to bring a whip!”

“Your Majesty?”

The words came from behind the guard, who stepped aside and let Tamanier Ambrodel enter. The noble elf approached and bowed formally. “May I have a private word with the Speaker?”

“Leave us,” Sithas told the guard. When only Quimant and himself were present, he gestured Tamanier to speak.

“I wish to prevent you from allowing a grave injustice,” Ambrodel began.

“I dispense the justice here. What business is it of yours?” demanded Sithas.

Ambrodel flinched at the Speaker’s harsh tone but forged ahead. “I am here at your mother’s request.”

“What is the nature of this ‘injustice’?”

“It concerns your punishment of this elf, this mason. Your mother, as you know, has received letters from Kith-Kanan separate from the official missives he sends to you. It seems that he communicates to her on matters that he does not care to discuss … with others.”

Sithas scowled.

“Kith-Kanan has taken a human woman as his companion. He has written your mother about her. Apparently he is very much smitten.”

Sithas sagged backward in the monstrous throne. He wanted to curse at Tamanier Ambrodel, to call him a liar. But he couldn’t. Instead, he had to accept the unthinkable, no matter how nightmarish the knowledge.

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

*

Sithas labored for hours over the letter he tried to write to his brother. He attempted a number of beginnings.

Kith-Kanan, my Brother,

I have word from mother of a woman you have taken from the enemy camp. She tells me that the human saved your life. We are grateful, of course.

He could go no further. He wanted to write, Why? Why? Don’t you understand what we’re fighting for? He wanted to ask why victory had come to smell like failure and defeat.

Sithas crumpled up the parchment and hurled it into the fireplace. The realization hit him brutally.

He no longer had anything to say to his brother.

Chapter 27

EARLY WINTER,
LAST DAY OF

(2213 PC)

The blizzard swept over the ice-berg dotted ocean and around the snow-swept flanks of the Kharolis Mountains. It roared over the plains, making life a bitter and icy nightmare for the armies of both sides.

Those forces – human, elven, and dwarven – ceased all maneuvers and combat. Wherever the blast caught them, the brigades and regiments of the Wildrunners sought what little shelter they could and made quarters for the winter. Their Ergothian enemies, in even smaller bands, occupied towns, farm outposts, and wilderness camps in a desperate attempt to shelter themselves from nature’s onslaught.

The Windriders, together with a large detachment of the dwarven legion, were more fortunate. Their camp occupied the barns and cabins of a huge farm, abandoned by its human tenants during the rout of the Ergothian Army. Here they found livestock for the griffons and bins of grain from which elven and dwarven cooks prepared a hard bread that, while bland and tough, would sustain the troops for several months.

The rest of Kith-Kanan’s army occupied a multitude of camps, more than forty, across an arc of the plains stretching some five hundred miles.

On this brutally cold day, Kith made an inspection of the Windriders’ camp. He pulled his woolen scarf closer about his face. It wouldn’t entirely block the wind, but perhaps it would keep his ears from becoming frostbitten. In a few minutes, he would reach the shelter of the dwarven lodge, where he would meet with Dunbarth. After that, the warm fire of his own house … and Suzine.

The Wildrunners had succeeded in driving the remnants of the Ergothian Army hundreds of miles to the west. Throughout the campaign, Suzine had ridden with Kith on his griffon and lain with him in his tent. Zestful and hardy in a way that was unlike elven females, Suzine had adopted his life as her own and made no complaints about fighting conditions or the vicissitudes of weather.

The Army of Ergoth had left thousands of corpses behind on the plains. The bravest of the human warriors had taken shelter in tracts of forestland, where the Windriders couldn’t pursue. Most of their fellows streamed home to Daltigoth. But these stubborn remnants, mostly light horsemen from the northern wing of the Ergothian Army, fought and held out.

Trapped within the forests, the horsemen couldn’t use their strengths of speed and surprise. Out of necessity, the human army began waging a relentless campaign of guerrilla warfare, striking in small groups, then falling back to the woods. Ironically the elves among them had proven particularly adept at organizing and utilizing these scattershot tactics.

After months of hard pursuit and small victories in countless skirmishes, Kith-Kanan was preparing for a sweeping attack that might have expelled the hated enemy from the elven lands altogether. The Wildrunner infantry had assembled, ready to drive into the tracts of forest and expunge the Ergothian troops. Elven cavalry and the Windriders would fall upon them after they were forced into the open.

Then the early blows of winter had paralyzed military operations.

In his heart, the elven general felt scant disappointment that circumstances would force him to remain in the field at least until spring. He was content in the large, well-heated cottage that he had requisitioned, his due as commander. He was content in the arms of Suzine. How she had changed his life, revitalized him, given him a sense of being that extended beyond the present! It was ironic, he reflected, that it was war between their people that had brought them together.

The long, low shape of the dwarven lodge emerged before him, and he knocked on the heavy wooden door, setting aside thoughts of his woman until later. The portal swung open, and he stepped into the dim, cavelike log house that the dwarves had erected as their winter shelter. The temperature, while warmer than the outside air, was quite a bit cooler than that which was maintained in the elven shelters.

“Come in, General!” boomed Dunbarth, amid a crowd of his veterans gathered around a platform in the middle of the lodge.

Two nearly naked dwarves gasped for breath on the stage before hurling themselves at each other. One of them swiftly picked his opponent up and flipped him over his shoulder, whereupon the dwarven crowd erupted into cheers and boos. More than a few pouches, bulging with gold and silver coins, changed hands.

“At least you don’t lack for diversion,” remarked Kith-Kanan with a smile, settling beside the dwarf commander at a low bench that several other dwarves had swiftly vacated for him.

Dunbarth chuckled. “It’ll do until we can get back to the real war. Here, I’ve had some wine heated for you.”

“Thanks.” Kith took the proffered mug while Dunbarth hefted a foaming tankard of ale. How the dwarves, who marched with a relatively small train of supplies, maintained a supply of the bitter draft was a mystery to Kith, yet every time he visited this winter shelter he found them drinking huge quantities of the stuff.

“And how do our elven comrades weather the storm?” inquired the dwarven commander.

“As well as could be expected. The griffons seem unaffected for the most part, while the Windriders and other elves have sufficient shelter. It could be a long winter.”

“Aye. It could be a long war, too.” Dunbarth made the remark in a lighthearted tone, but Kith-Kanan didn’t think he was joking.

“I don’t think so,” the elf countered. “We have the remnants of the humans trapped to the west. Surely they can’t move any more than we can in the midst of this storm.”

The dwarf nodded in silent agreement, so the elf continued. “As soon as the worst of the winter passes, we’ll head into the attack. It shouldn’t take more than two months to push the whole mass of them off the plains and back within the borders of Ergoth where they belong!”

“I hope you’re right,” replied the dwarven general sincerely. “Yet I’m worried about their commander, this Giarna. He’s a resourceful devil!”

“I can handle Giarna!” Kith’s voice was almost a growl, and Dunbarth looked at him in surprise.

“Any word from your brother?” inquired the dwarf after a moment’s pause.

“Not since the storm set in.”

“Thorbardin is disunited,” reported his companion. “The Theiwar agitate for a withdrawal of dwarven troops, and it seems they might be winning the Daergar Clan over to their side.”

“No wonder, with their own ‘hero’ joining ranks with the Army of Ergoth.” The reports had been confirmed in late autumn: After Sithas had driven him from Silvanost, Than-Kar had delivered his battalion over to General Giarna. The Theiwar dwarves had helped protect the retreating army during the last weeks of the campaign before winter had stopped all action.

“A shameful business, that,” agreed Dunbarth. “The lines of battle may be clear on the field, but in the minds of our people, they begin to grow very hazy indeed.”

“Do you need anything here?” inquired Kith-Kanan.

“You wouldn’t have a hundred bawdy dwarven wenches, would you?” asked Dunbarth with a sly grin. He winked at the elf. “Though perhaps they would merely sap our fighting spirits. One has to be careful, you know!”

Kith laughed, suddenly embarrassed about his own circumstances. The presence of Suzine in his house was common knowledge throughout the camp. He felt no shame about that, and he knew his troops liked the human woman and that she returned their obvious affection. Still, the thought of her being regarded as his “bawdy wench” he found disturbing.

They talked for a while longer of the pleasures of homecomings and of adventures in more peaceful times. The storm continued unabated, and finally Kith-Kanan remembered that he needed to finish his rounds before returning to his own house. He bade his farewells and continued his inspection of the other elven positions before turning toward his cottage.

His heart rose at the prospect of seeing Suzine again, though he had been gone from her presence for mere hours. He couldn’t bear the thought of this winter camp without her. But he wondered about the men. Did they see her as a “wench” as Dunbarth seemed to? As some sort of camp follower? The thought would not go away.

A bodyguard, an immaculate corporal in the armor of the House Protectorate, threw open the door of his house as he approached. Kith quickly went inside, enjoying the warmth that caressed him as he shook off his snow-covered garb.

He passed through the guardroom – once the parlor of the house, but now the garrison for a dozen men-at-arms, those trusted with the life of the army commander. He nodded at the elves, all of whom had snapped to attention, but he quickly passed through the room into the smaller chambers beyond, closing the interior door behind him.

A crackling blaze filled the fireplace before him, and the aroma of sizzling beef teased his nostrils. Suzine came into his arms and he felt completely alive. Everything would wait until the delights of reunion had run their course. Without speaking, they went to the hearth and lay down before the fire.

Only afterward did they slowly break the spell of their silence.

“Did you find Arcuballis in the pasture?” Suzine asked, lazily tracing a finger along Kith-Kanan’s bare arm.

“Yes. He seems to prefer the open field to the barn,” the elf replied. “I tried to coax him into a stall, but he stayed outside, weathering the storm.”

“He’s too much like his master,” the human woman said tenderly. Finally she rose and fetched a jug of wine that she had warmed by the fireplace. Huddled together under a bearskin, they each enjoyed a glass.

“It’s odd,” said Kith-Kanan, his mood reflective. “These are the most peaceful times I’ve ever spent, here beside the fire with you.”

“It’s not odd,” replied the woman. “We were meant to know peace together. I’ve seen it, known it, for years.”

Kith didn’t dispute her. She had told him how she used to watch him in the mirror, the enchanted glass that she had crashed over Giarna’s skull to save his life. She carried the broken shards of the glass in a soft leather box. He knew that she had seen the griffons before the battle yet hadn’t told her commander about this crucial fact. Often he had wondered what could have made her take such a risk for one – an enemy! – she had met only once before.

Yet as the weeks became months, he had ceased to ask these questions, sensing – as did Suzine – the rightness of their lives together. She brought to him a comfort and serenity that he thought had been gone forever. With her, he felt a completeness that he had never before attained, not with Anaya nor Hermathya.

That she was a human seemed astonishingly irrelevant to Kith. He knew that the folk of the plains, be they elf or dwarf or human, had begun to see the war break the barriers of racial purity that had so long obsessed them. He wondered, for a brief moment, whether the elves of Silvanost would ever be able to appreciate the good humans, people like Suzine.

A schism was growing, he knew, among his folk. It divided the nation just as certainly as it would inevitably divide his brother and himself. Kith-Kanan had made up his mind which side he was on, and in that decision, he knew that he had crossed a line.

This woman with him now, her head resting so softly upon his shoulder, deserved more than to be considered a general’s “bawdy wench.” Perhaps the fumes from the fire wafted too thickly through the room, muddling his thoughts. Or perhaps their isolation here on the far frontiers of the kingdom brought home to Kith the truly important things in his life.

In any event, he made up his mind. Slowly he turned, feeling her stir against his side. Sleepily she opened an eye, brushing aside her red hair to smile at him.

“Will you become my wife?” asked the general of the army.

“Of course,” replied his human woman.

Part IV

KINSLAYER

Chapter 28

FROM THE RIVER OF TIME,
THE GREAT SCROLL OF ASTINUS,
MASTER HISTORIAN OF KRYNN

The Kinslayer War spewed blood across the plainslands for nearly forty years. It was a period of long, protracted battles, of vast interludes of retrenchment, of starvation, disease, and death. Savage blizzards froze the armies camped in winter, while fierce storms – lightning, hail, and cyclonic winds – ripped capriciously through the ranks of both sides during the spring season.

From the historian’s perspective, there is a dreary sameness to the war. Kith-Kanan’s Wildrunners pursued the humans, attacked them, seemed to wipe them out, and then even more humans took the places of the slain.

General Giarna maintained complete control of the Ergothian troops, and though his losses were horrendous, he bore them without regret. The pressure of his sudden attacks chipped away at the elves, while reinforcements balanced out the general’s losses. A stalemate evolved, with the forces of Silvanesti winning every battle, but with the humans always averting complete defeat.

Despite this monotonous pattern, the course of the war had several key junctures. The Siege of Sithelbec must be considered a decisive hour. It seemed the last chance for General Giarna to attain an undiluted victory. But the Battle of Sithelbec turned the tide and will always be ranked among the turning points of the history of Krynn.

Throughout, the life of one individual best illustrates the tragedy and the inevitability of the Kinslayer War. This is the human wife of Kith-Kanan, Suzine des Quivalin.

Relative of the great Emperor Quivalin V, as well as his heirs (a total of three Quivalin rulers presided over the war), her presence in the army of her nation’s enemy served to solidify the human resolve. Disowned by her monarch, sentenced in absentia to hang by her former lover, General Giarna, she took to the elven cause with steadfast loyalty.

For over thirty-five years, the greater part of her life, she remained true to her husband, first as his lover and later as his companion and adviser, always as his wife. She was never accepted by the elves of Silvanesti; her husband’s brother never even acknowledged her existence. She bore Kith-Kanan two children, and the half-elves were raised as elves among the clans of the Wildrunners.

Yet the elven army, like its society, changed over the years. Even as human blood entered the royal elven veins, the human presence came to be accepted as a part of the Wildrunner force. The pure racial lines of the eastern elves became irrelevant in the mixed culture of the west. Even as they fought for the cause of Silvanesti, Kith-Kanan’s elves lost the distinction of the war’s purpose as seen by Sithas.

And the battles raged on and seemingly built to an inevitable climax, only to have the elusive moment of decision once again slip out of reach.

Beyond these key moments, however, and certainly surpassing them in oddity, was the peculiar end of the war itself …

Chapter 29

EARLY SPRING,
YEAR OF THE CLOUD GIANT

(2177 PC)

The sprig that had once made such a proud sapling now towered over Kith-Kanan, a stalwart oak of some sixty feet in height. He gazed at it but could summon little emotion. He found that the memory of Anaya had faded over the distance of time. Nearly four decades of combat, of battles against the elusive armies of Ergoth, had worn away at his life. It seemed that treasured thoughts of a time before the war had been the first memories to disappear. Mackeli and Anaya might have been acquaintances of a friend, elves he had heard described and seen illustrated but had never actually met.

Even Suzine. He had a hard time now remembering her as she used to be.

Her hair, in earlier days lush and fiery red, was now thin and white. Once supple grace had become slow and awkward movement, her once beautiful young body arthritic and stiff. Her sight and hearing had begun to fail. While he, with his elven longevity, was still a young adult, she had become an elderly woman.

He had flown here early this morning, partly in order to avoid her – to avoid all of those who gathered at the forest camp, an hour’s flight by griffon from here, for the war conference. This was the eighth such council between himself and his brother. They met about once every five years. Most of the gatherings occurred, like this one, halfway between Silvanost and Sithelbec. Kith-Kanan couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the elven capital, and Sithas preferred to avoid a journey all the way to the war zone.

These quintennial conferences had begun as grand outings, an opportunity for the general and his family, together with his most trusted captains, to embark on a journey away from the tedious rigors of war. By now, they were anathema to Kith, as predictable in their own way as the battlefield.

His brother’s family and retinue had made an art out of shunning the human woman whom Kith-Kanan had married. Suzine was always invited to the banquets and feasts and celebrations. Once there, however, she was pointedly ignored. Some elves, such as his mother, Nirakina, had defied the trend, showing kindness and courtesy to Kith’s wife. Nirakina’s husband of the past thirty years, Tamanier Ambrodel, who came from the plainslands himself, tried to lessen the prejudice that fell upon her.

But Hermathya and Quimant and the others had shown her only contempt, and over the years, Suzine had tired of facing their antagonism. Now she avoided the large gatherings, though she still traveled with Kith-Kanan to the conference site.

Kith looked away from the tree, as if guilty about his thoughts, which now turned to his children. Suzine had borne him two half-elves, and he knew that they should bring him joy.

Ulvian, son of Kith-Kanan! That one, it would seem, was destined to rule some day. Was he not the eldest son of the elven hero who had led his army faithfully for all the years of the Kinslayer War? Despite the rapid growth to adulthood that was a mark of his half-human ancestry, how could he fail to show the wisdom and bravery that had been his father’s traits of survival for all these years? So far, those traits hadn’t been evident. The lad showed a lack of ambition bordering on indolence, and his arrogant and supercilious nature had alienated anyone who had tried to be his friend.

Or Verhanna, his daughter. Blessed image of her mother? She was in danger of becoming, with her constant tantrums and her litany of rude demands, a living reminder of the divisive war that had become a way of life for him and for all of the elven peoples.

The Kinslayer War. How many families had been divided by death or betrayal? No longer was this a war between elves and humans, if it had ever been that. The population of Silvanesti couldn’t support the level of warfare, so now, in addition to the stalwart dwarves, huge companies of human mercenaries fought alongside his Wildrunners. They were well paid for serving the elven standards.

At the same time, many elves, especially the Kagonesti, driven from the nation by the demanding decrees of the Speaker of the Stars, had fled to the human banner. Dwarves, particularly of the Theiwar and Daergar clans, had also enlisted to serve the Emperor of Ergoth.

This was a strange admixture of alliances. How often had elf slain elf, human fought human, or dwarf butchered dwarf? Each battle brought new atrocities, as likely as not visited by fighters of one race against enemies of the same background.

The war, once fought along clear and precise lines, had become an endlessly feeding monster, for the numberless enemy seemed willing to pay any price to win, and the skilled and valiant troops of Kith-Kanan purchased victory after victory on scores of battlefields with the precious coin of their own blood. Yet ultimate victory – a settlement of the war itself – remained elusive.

With a sigh, Kith-Kanan rose to his feet and crossed wearily to Arcuballis. He would have to get back to the camp, he knew. The conference was due to begin in an hour. The griffon leaped into the sky while the rider mused sadly about the time when his life had been shadowed by the growth of a tree in the forest.

*

“We have chased the humans across the plains every summer! We kill a thousand of them, and five thousand come to take their places,” Kith-Kanan loudly complained about the frustrating cycle of events. Sithas, Lord Quimant, and Tamanier Ambrodel had come from the capital city to attend this council. For his part, Kith-Kanan had brought Parnigar and Dunbarth Ironthumb on his journey across the plains. Other members of their respective parties – including Hermathya, Nirakina, Suzine, and Mari, Parnigar’s newest human wife – now enjoyed the shade of awnings and trees around the fringes of the great meadow where they camped.

Meanwhile, the two delegations engaged in heated discussion within an enclosed tent in the middle of the clearing. Two dozen guards stood, out of earshot, around the shelter.

The most savage of the spring storms were still some weeks away, but a steady drizzle soaked the tent and added to the gray futility of the mood.

“We crush an army in battle, and another army marches at us from another direction. They know they cannot defeat us, yet they keep trying! What kind of creatures are they? If they kill five of my Windriders at the cost of a thousand of their own soldiers, they hail it as a victory!”

Kith-Kanan shook his head, knowing that it was a human victory whenever his griffon cavalry lost even one precious body. The Windriders numbered a bare hundred and fifty stalwart veterans now, scarcely a third of their original number. There were no more griffons; to ride, nor trained elven warriors to mount them. Yet the tide of humans flowing across the plains seemed to grow thicker every year.

“What kind of beings are these that they could spill so much blood, lose so many lives, and still carry forward their war?” Sithas demanded, exasperated.

Even after forty years of warfare, the Speaker of the Stars couldn’t fathom the motivations of the humans or their various allies.

“They breed like rabbits,” observed Quimant. “We have no hope of matching their numbers, and our treasury runs dry simply to maintain the troops that we have.”

“Knowing that this is true and doing something about it are two different things,” Sithas retorted.

The council lapsed into glum silence. There was a depressing familiarity to their predicament. The national attrition caused by the war had become readily apparent thirty years earlier.

“The winter, at least, has been mild,” suggested Parnigar, trying to improve their mood. “We lost very few casualties to cold or snow.”

“Yes, but in the past, such winters have given us the heaviest spring storms,” answered Kith-Kanan. “And the summers are always bloody,” he concluded.

“We could send peace feelers to the emperor,” suggested Tamanier Ambrodel. “It may be that Quivalin the Seventh is more amenable than his father or grandfather.”

Parnigar snorted. “He’s been ruler for four years. In that time, we’ve seen, if anything, an increase in the pace of Ergoth’s attacks! They butcher their prisoners. This past summer, they began poisoning wells wherever they passed. No, Quivalin the Seventh is no peacemonger.”

“Perhaps it is not the emperor’s true will,” suggested Quimant, drawing another snort from Parnigar. “General Giarna has made an empire for himself of the battlefield. He would be reluctant to relinquish it – and what better way to sustain his power than to ensure that the war continues?”

“There is the matter of General Giarna,” grunted Dunbarth, with an uncharacteristic scowl. “He presses forward with every opportunity, more brutal than ever. I don’t think he’d desist even if given the order. War has become his life. It sustains him!”

“Surely after all these years …?” Tamanier wondered.

“The man doesn’t age! Our spies tell us he looks the same as he did forty years ago, and he has the vitality of a young man. His own troops hate and fear him, but there are worse ways to ensure the obedience of your subordinates.”

“We have taken the extreme step of sending assassins after him, a brigade comprised of humans and elves both.” Kith related the tale of the assassination attempt. “None survived. From what we have pieced together, they reached Giarna in his tent. His personal security seemed lax. They attacked with daggers and swords but couldn’t even injure him.”

“Surely that’s an exaggeration,” suggested his brother. “If they got that close, how could they not have been successful?”

“General Giarna has survived before, under circumstances where I would have expected him to die. He has been showered with arrows. Though his horse may be slain beneath him, he gets away on foot. He has fought his way out of deadly ambushes, leaving dozens of dead Wildrunners behind him.”

“Something unnatural is at work there,” pronounced Quimant. “It’s dangerous to think of peace with such a creature.”

“It is dangerous to fight such a creature as well,” remarked Parnigar pointedly. Quimant understood the intent of the remark. Parnigar had done nearly a half century of fighting, after all, while Quimant’s family had spent those years raking in a fortune in munitions profits. But the lord coolly ignored the warrior’s provocation.

“We cannot talk of peace, yet,” emphasized Sithas. He turned to his brother.

“We need something that will allow us to bargain from a position of strength.”

“Do you mean to suggest that you’d be willing to bargain?” asked Kith-Kanan, surprised.

Sithas sighed. “You’re right. You’ve all been right, but for years, I’ve refused to believe you. But it has begun to seem inconceivable that we can win a complete victory over the humans. And we cannot maintain this costly war forever!”

“I must inform you,” interjected Dunbarth, clearing his throat. “Though I have stalled my king for several years now, his patience will not last forever.

Already many dwarves are agitating for us to return home. You must realize that King Pandelthain is not so suspicious of humans as was King Hal-Waith.”

And you, old friend – you deserve the chance to go home, to rest and retire. Kith-Kanan kept that thought to himself. Nevertheless, the changes wrought by age in Dunbarth were more apparent than any that were manifest in the elves. The dwarf’s beard and hair were the color of silver. His once husky shoulders had a frail look to them, as if his body was a mere shell of its former self. The skin of his face was mottled and wrinkled.

Yet his eyes still shined with a merry light and keen perceptiveness. Now, as if he followed Kith’s thoughts, he turned to the elven general and chuckled.

“Tell’em, young fellow. Tell’em what we’ve got up our sleeves.”

Kith nodded. The time was right.

“We have word that the humans are planning a trap against the Windriders. They will lure the griffons into an archery ambush. We want to amass the Wildrunners, using all the mercenaries, garrison forces, and dwarves – our entire army. We want to come at them from the north, east, and south. If we hit them hard and we keep the advantage of surprise, we’ll achieve the kind of setback that will force them to the bargaining table.”

“But Sithelbec – you’d leave the fortress unscreened?” Sithas asked. In the course of the Kinslayer War, the siege of those high palisades had become an epic tale, and a bustling military city had blossomed around the walls. The place had a tremendous symbolic as well as practical importance to the Silvanesti cause, and a sizable proportion of the Wildrunners were permanently garrisoned there.

“It’s a risk,” Kith-Kanan admitted. “We will move quickly, striking before the humans can learn our intentions. Then the Windriders will act as the bait of the trap, and while the enemy is distracted, we will strike.”

“It’s worth a try,” urged Parnigar, supporting his general’s plan. “We can’t keep chasing shadows year after year!”

“Some shadows are more easily caught,” observed Quimant acidly. “The human women, for example.”

Parnigar leaped to his feet, knocking his chair over backward and lunging toward the lord.

“Enough!” The Speaker of the Stars reached out and pushed the warrior back toward his chair. Even in his rage, Parnigar heeded his ruler.

“Your insulting remark was uncalled for!” barked Kith-Kanan, staring at Quimant.

“True,” Sithas agreed. “But neither would it be invited if you and your officers kept your loyalties a little more clear in your own heads!”

Kith-Kanan flushed with anger and frustration. Why did it always come down to this? He glared at Sithas as if his twin was a stranger.

A noise at the tent flap pulled their attention away from the conference.

Vanesti, Ulvian, and Verhanna, the children of the royal twins, erupted into the tent with impertinent boldness. Hermathya followed.

Kith-Kanan met her eyes and froze, suddenly numb. By the gods, he had forgotten how beautiful she was! Furious and guilty, he nonetheless watched her furtively. She cast him a sideways glance, and as always, he saw the beckoning in her eye that only furthered his pain. Never again, he knew, would he betray his brother. And now there was the matter of his own wife.

“Uncle Kith!” Vanesti irritated his father by running directly to his uncle. The young elf stopped quickly and then pantomimed a formal bow.

“Come here. Stop acting like the court jester!” Kith swept his nephew into an embrace, keenly aware of the eyes of his own children upon him. Ulvian and Verhanna, though younger than Vanesti, had matured much more quickly because of their half-human blood. Already young adults, they looked disdainfully upon such adolescent outbursts of emotion.

Perhaps, too, they sensed the bitter contrast in their relationship with their own uncle. There had never been an “Uncle Sithas” or a “come here, children!” between them. They were half-human and consequently had no place in the Speaker’s royal family.

Perhaps they understood, but they didn’t forgive.

“This reminds me of a final matter for discussion,” Sithas said stiffly. He relaxed when Vanesti left Kith’s side to stand with Ulvian and Vehanna beside the open door flap of the tent.

“Vanesti is due to begin his training in the warrior arts. He has disdained the academies in the city and has prevailed upon me to make this request: Will you take him as your squire?”

For a moment, Kith-Kanan sat back, acutely aware of Vanesti’s hopeful gaze. He couldn’t suppress a surge of affection and pride. He liked the young elf and felt that he would be a good warrior – good at whatever he attempted, for that matter. Yet he couldn’t entirely ignore another feeling.

The proposition reminded him of Ulvian. Kith had sent his son to Parnigar, as squire to that most able soldier. The young half-elf had proven so intractable and shiftless that, with deep regret, Parnigar had been forced to send him back to his father.

The failure had stung Kith-Kanan far more than it had disturbed Ulvian. Yet when he looked at the young form of Vanesti, so much like a younger version of Kith-Kanan himself, he knew what his answer must be. “It would be my honor,” Kith replied seriously.

*

The aging woman watched the image of the elf in the mirror. The glass was cracked and patched, with several slivers missing. It had, after all, been reconstructed from shards. Five years earlier, she had hired a legion of skilled elven artisans to take those broken pieces, guarded by Suzine for years, adding crafts of their own to restore the glass to some measure of its former power.

It seemed that, with the distance that had grown between herself and her husband, she had little left to do in life but observe the course of things around her. The mirror gave her the means to do so, without forcing her to leave her carriage and be exposed to the subtle humiliations of the Silvanesti elves.

Suzine flushed as she thought of Hermathya and Quimant, whose cutting remarks had hurt her decades earlier when she had allowed them to penetrate her emotions. Yet even those barbs had been easier to take than the aloof silence of Sithas, her own brother-in-law, who had barely acknowledged her existence!

Of course, there was goodness to be found in elvenkind, too. There was Nirakina, who had always treated her as a daughter, and Tamanier Ambrodel, who had offered friendship. But now age had impaired even those relationships. How could she feel like a daughter to Nirakina when the four-centuries old elf-woman seemed like a spry young woman beside the aging Suzine? And her hearing made conversation difficult, so that even Tamanier Ambrodel had to shout his remarks, often repeating them two or three times. She found it less embarrassing to simply avoid these two good souls.

So she remained in this enclosed coach that Kith-Kanan had given her. The large vehicle was comfortably appointed, even to the point of containing a soft bed – a bed that was always hers alone.

For what must have been the millionth time, she wondered about the course her life had taken, about the love she had developed for an elf who would inevitably outlive her by centuries. She couldn’t regret that decision. Her years of happiness with Kith-Kanan had been the finest of her life. But those years were gone, and if she didn’t regret her choice of nearly four decades earlier, neither could she bury the unhappiness that was now her constant companion.

Her children were no comfort. Ulvian and Verhanna seemed embarrassed by their mother’s humanness and shunned her, pretending to be full-blooded elves insofar as they could. But she felt pity for them as well, for their father had never shown them the affection that would have been due his proper heirs – as if he himself was secretly ashamed of their mixed racial heritage.

Now that she was too old to ride a horse, her husband carted her around in this carriage. She felt like so much baggage, a cargo that Kith-Kanan was determined to see properly delivered before he proceeded with the rest of his life. How long could she remain like this? What could she do to change her lot in her waning years?

Her mind drifted to the enemy – to her husband’s enemy and her own. General Giarna frightened her now more than ever before. Often she had observed him in the repaired glass, shocked by the youthful appearance and vigor of the man. She sensed in him the power of something much deeper than she had first suspected.

Often she remembered the way Giarna had slain General Barnet. It was as if he had sucked the life out of him, she remembered thinking. That, she now knew, was exactly what he had done. How many more lives had the Boy General claimed over the years? What was the true cost of his youthfulness?

Her mind and her mirror drifted back to Kith-Kanan. She saw him in the conference. He was close enough to her that she could see him very clearly indeed. The elf’s image grew large in her mirror, and then she looked into his eyes, through his eyes. She stared, as she had learned to do years before, into his subconscious.

She looked past the war, the constant fear that she found within him, to gentler things. She sought the image of his three women, for she was used to seeing the elf women Anaya and Hemathya there. Suzine sought the image of herself – herself as a young woman, alluring and sensual.

That image had grown more difficult to find of late, and this added to her sorrow.

This time she could find no remembrance of herself. Even the spritely Anaya was gone, her image replaced by the picture of a tall, slender tree. Then she came upon Hermathya and sensed the desire in Kith’s mind. It was a new sensation that suddenly caused the mirror to glow, until Suzine turned her face away. The mirror faded into darkness as tears filled her eyes.

Slowly, gently, she placed the mirror back into its case. Trying to stem the trembling of her hands, she looked about for her coachman. Kith-Kanan wouldn’t return for several hours, she knew.

When he did, she would be gone.

Chapter 30

SPRING

(2177 PC)

The lord-major-chieftain supreme of Hillrock stretched his brawny arms, acutely aware that his muscles were not so supple as they had once been.

Placing a huge hand to his head, he stroked blunt fingers through hair that seemed to grow thinner by the week.

Squinting against the setting sun, he looked about his pastoral community of large one-room dwellings hewn from the rock of this sheltered valley. To the east towered the heights of the Khalkist Mountains, while to the west, the range settled into the flatlands of the Silvanesti plain.

For three decades, he had ruled as lord-major-chieftain supreme, and they had been good years for all of his people. Good years, but past now. Poking his broad tongue against the single tooth that jutted proudly from his lower gum, the lord-major exercised his mind by attempting to ponder the future.

A nagging urge tugged at him, desirous of pulling him away from peaceful Hillrock. He couldn’t put his finger on the reasons, but the hill giant who had once been called One-Tooth now felt a need to leave, to strike out across those plains. He was reluctant to answer this compulsion, for he had the feeling that once he left, he would never return. He couldn’t understand this compulsion, but it grew more persistent every day.

Finally the hill giant gathered his wives together, cuffing and cursing them until he had their attention.

“I go away!” he said loudly.

The formalities completed, he hefted his club and started down the valley.

Whatever the nature of the longing that drew him to the plains, he knew that he would find its source in an elf who had once been his friend.

*

The conference broke up in awkward farewells. Only Hermathya displayed emotion, screaming and rebuking Sithas for his decision to send Vanesti to the battlefield. The Speaker of the Stars coolly ignored his wife, and she collapsed into spasms of weeping. She desperately hugged the young elf, to his acute embarrassment, and then retired to her coach for the long journey back to Silvanost. Few had noted Suzine’s departure late on the previous day. Kith-Kanan was puzzled by her leaving, though he assumed she had reason to return to Sithelbec. In truth, he was also a little relieved. The presence of his human wife put strain on any communication with Sithas, and Suzine’s absence had made the subdued farewell banquet a little easier to endure.

Still, it was unlike her to depart so abruptly without advising him, so he couldn’t totally banish his concern. This concern mounted to genuine anxiety when, ten days later, they finally arrived at the fortress and learned that the general’s wife hadn’t been seen. Nor had she sent any message.

He dispatched Windriders to comb the plains, seeking a sign of Suzine’s grand coach. However, true to Kith’s prediction, the spring storm season began early, and thunder-storms blanketed the grasslands with hail and torrential rains. Winds howled unchecked across hundreds of miles of prairie. The search became all but impossible and had to be suspended for all intents and purposes.

In the meantime, Kith-Kanan threw himself into the choreography of his great battle plan. The forces of the Wildrunners mustered at Sithelbec, preparing to march westward, where they would hit the human army before General Giarna even realized they had left the region of the fortress.

Intelligence about the enemy was scarce and unreliable. Finally Kith called upon the only scout he could count on to make a thorough reconnaissance: Parnigar.

“Take two dozen riders and get as close as you can,” ordered Kith-Kanan, knowing full well that he was asking his old friend to place his life at grave risk.

But he had no real alternative.

If the veteran resented the difficult order, he didn’t let on. “I’ll try to get out and back quickly,” he replied. “We want to get the campaign off to an early start.”

“Agreed,” Kith noted. “And be careful. I’d rather see you come back empty-handed than not come back at all.”

Parnigar grinned, then grew suddenly serious. “Has there been any word about – I should say ‘from’ – Suzine?”

Kith sighed. “Not a thing. It’s as if the world gobbled her up. She slipped away from the conference that afternoon. I brought Vanesti back to the camp as my squire and found her gone.”

“These damned storms will run their course in another few weeks,” said the scout, “but I doubt you’ll be able to send fliers out before then. No doubt she’s holed up safe on some farmstead …”

But his words lacked conviction. Indeed, Kith-Kanan had lost optimism and didn’t know what to believe anymore. All indications were that Suzine had left the camp of her own free will. Why? And why wasn’t he more upset?

“You mentioned your squire.” Parnigar smoothly changed the subject. “How’s the young fellow working out?”

“He’s eager, I’ve got to grant him that. My armor hasn’t gleamed like this in years.”

“When we march …?”

“He’ll have to come along,” Kith replied. “But I’ll keep him to the rear. He doesn’t have enough experience to let him near the fighting.”

“Aye,” grunted the old warrior before disappearing into the storm.

*

“This will do, driver. I shall proceed on foot.”

“Milady?” The coachman, as he opened the door for Suzine, looked at her in concern. “The Army of Ergoth has scouts all over here,” he said. “They’ll find you for sure.”

I’m counting on that. Suzine didn’t verbalize her reply. “Your dedication is touching, but, really, I’ll be fine.”

“I think the general would be —”

“The general will not be displeased,” she said firmly.

“Very well —” His reluctance was plain in his voice, but he assisted her in stepping to the ground. The carriage rested at the side of a muddy trail.

Several wide pathways led into the woods around them.

She was grateful for the smoothness of the trail. Neither her eyes nor her legs were up to a rigorous hike. She turned toward the coachman who had carried her so faithfully across the plains for more than a week. Her mirror, now resting in the box on her belt, had shown her where to go, allowing her to guide them around outposts of human pickets. The only other possession she carried was in a pouch at her belt: a narrow-bladed knife. She wouldn’t be coming back, but she couldn’t tell the driver that.

“Wait here for two hours,” she said. “I’ll be back by then. I know these woods well. There are some old sights I would like to see.”

Nodding and scowling, the driver climbed back onto his seat and watched until the woods swallowed her up. She hurried along the trail as fast as her aging legs would carry her, but even so, it took her more than an hour to cover two miles. She moved unerringly past many forks in the path, certain that the mirror had shown her the right way.

Shortly after she passed the end of her second mile, an armored crossbowman stepped into the path before her.

“Halt!” he cried, leveling his weapon. At the same time, he gaped in astonishment at the lone old woman who approached the headquarters of the Army of Ergoth.

“I’m glad you are here to greet me,” she said pleasantly. “Take me to see General Giarna!”

“You want to see the general?”

“We’re … old friends.”

Shaking his head in amazement, the guard nevertheless led Suzine a short way farther down the trail, entering a small clearing. The top of the meadow was almost completely enclosed by a canopy of tall elms – protection against detection from the air, Suzine knew.

“The general’s in there.” The man gestured to a small cottage near the clearing’s edge. Two men-at-arms flanked the doorway, and they snapped to attention as Suzine walked up to them.

“She wants to see the general,” explained the crossbowman, with a shrug.

“Should we search her?” The question, from a muscular halberdier, sent a shiver down Suzine’s stooped spine. She felt acutely conscious of the dagger in her pouch.

“That won’t be necessary.” Suzine recognized the deep voice from within the cottage. The watchmen stood aside, allowing Suzine to step through the door.

“You have come back to me!”

For a moment, Suzine stood still, blinking and trying to see in the dim light.

Then the large black-cloaked figure moved toward her, and she knew him – knew his sight, his smell, and his intimidating presence.

With a sense of dull wonder, she realized that the tales she had heard, the images of her mirror, were all true. General Giarna stood before her now. She knew that he must be at least seventy years old, but he looked the same as he had forty years earlier!

He stepped closer to her. She felt the revulsion and fear she had known forty years earlier when he had approached her, had used her. Slowly her fingers closed around the weapon in her pouch. The man loomed over her, looking down with a slightly patronizing smile. She stared into his eyes and saw that same hollowness, the same sense of void, that she remembered with such vivid terror.

Then she pulled out the knife and threw back her arm. Why is he laughing? She wondered about that even as she drove the point of the weapon toward the unarmored spot at his throat. Giarna made no attempt to block her thrust.

The blade struck his skin but snapped as the weapon broke at the hilt. The useless shard of metal fell to the floor as Suzine blinked, incredulous.

General Giarna’s throat showed not the tiniest hint of a wound.

*

It wasn’t until Parnigar returned with his company of scouts that Kith-Kanan received any vital information regarding the enemy’s positions. Wearing sodden trail clothes from the nine-day reconnaissance, the veteran captain reported to Kith-Kanan as soon as he returned to the fort.

“We pushed at the fringes of their position,” he reported. “Their pickets were as thick as flies on a dead horse. They got two of my scouts, and the rest of us barely slipped out of their grasp.”

Kith shook his head, wincing. Even after forty years of war, the death of each elf under his command struck him like a personal blow.

“We couldn’t get into the main camp,” explained Parnigar. “There were just too many guards. But judging by the density of their patrols, I have to conclude they were guarding the main body of Giarna’s force.”

“Thanks for taking the risk, my friend,” said Kith-Kanan finally. “Too many times I have asked you.” Parnigar smiled wearily. “I’m in this fight to the end – one way or another!” The lanky warrior cleared his throat hesitantly. “There’s … something else.”

“Yes?”

“We found the Lady Suzine’s coachman on the outskirts of the human lines.”

Kith-Kanan looked up in sudden fear. “Was he – is he alive?”

“Was.” Parnigar shook his head. “He’d been taken by their pickets, then escaped after a fight. Badly wounded in the stomach, but he made it to the trail. We found him there.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t know where she was. He had dropped her beside the trail, and she followed a path into the woods. We checked out the area. Guards were thicker than ever there, so I think the headquarters must have been somewhere nearby.”

Could she be heading back to Giarna? Kith-Kanan sensed Parnigar’s unspoken question. Surely she wouldn’t betray Kith-Kanan.

“Can you show me where this place is?” asked the elven commander urgently.

“Of course.”

Kith sighed sympathetically. “I’m sorry that you must travel again so quickly, but perhaps …”

Parnigar waved off the explanation. “I’ll be ready to ride when you need me.”

“Go to your quarters now. Mari’s been waiting for you for days,” Kith-Kanan ordered, realizing that Parnigar still dripped from his drenched garments. “She’s probably got dry clothes all ready to get you dressed.”

“I doubt she wants to dress me!” Parnigar chuckled knowingly.

“Off to your wife now, before she grows old on you!” Kith’s attempt at humor felt lame to both of them, though Parnigar forced a chuckle as he left.

Chapter 31

LATE SPRING,
SILVANOST

Hermathya looked at herself in the mirror. She was beautiful and she was young … yet for what purpose? She was alone.

Tears of bitterness welled in her eyes. She rose and whirled away from her table, only to be confronted by her bed. That canopied, quilted sleeping place mocked her every bit as harshly as did the mirror. For decades, it had been hers alone.

Now even her child had been sent away. Her anger throbbed as hot as ever, the same rage that had turned the two-week journey back to the city into a silent ordeal for Sithas. He endured her fury and didn’t let it bother him, and Hermathya knew that he had won.

Vanesti was gone, serving beside his uncle on the front lines of danger! How could her husband have done this? What kind of perverse cruelty would cause him to torture his wife so? She thought of Sithas as a stranger. What little closeness they had once enjoyed had been worn thin by the stresses of war.

Her thoughts abruptly wandered to Kith-Kanan. How much like Sithas he looked – and yet how very different he was! Hermathya looked back upon the passion of their affair as one of the bright moments of her life. Before her name had been uttered as the prospective bride of the future Speaker of the Stars, her life had been a passionate whirl.

Then the announcement had come – Hermathya, daughter of the Oakleaf Clan, would wed Sithas of Silvanos! She remembered how Kith-Kanan had begged – he had begged! – her to accompany him, to run away. She had laughed at him as if he were mad.

Yet the madness, it now seemed, was hers. Prestige and station and comfort meant nothing, she knew, not when compared to the sense of happiness that she had thrown away.

The one time since then when Kith-Kanan and she had come together illicitly flared brightly in her mind. That episode had never been repeated because Kith-Kanan’s guilt wouldn’t allow it. He had avoided her for years and was awkward when they were brought together through necessity.

Shaking her head, she fought back the tears. Sithas was in the palace.

Hermathya would go to him and make him bring their son back home!

She found her husband in his study, perusing a document with the Oakleaf stamp, in gold, at the top. He looked up when she entered, and blinked with surprise.

“You must call Vanesti back,” she blurted, staring at him.

“I will not.”

“Can’t you understand what he means to me?” Hermathya fought to keep her voice under control. “I need him here with me. He’s all I’ve got!”

“We’ve been over this. It will do the lad good to get out of the palace, to live among the troops. Besides, Kith will take good care of him. Don’t you trust him?”

“Do you?” Hermathya uttered the insinuation without thinking.

“Why? What do you mean?” There had been something in her tone. Sithas leapt from his chair and stared at her accusingly.

She turned away, suddenly calm. She controlled the discussion now.

“What did you mean, do I trust him?” Sithas’s voice was level and cold. “Of course I do!”

“You have been gullible before.”

“I know that you loved him,” the Speaker added. “I know of your affair before our marriage. I even know that he pleaded with you to go with him when he flew into exile.”

“I should have gone!” she cried, whirling suddenly.

“Do you still love him?”

“No.” She didn’t know whether this was a lie or not. “But he loves me!”

“That’s nonsense!”

“He came to me in my bedroom long ago. He didn’t leave until the morning.”

She lied about the room because it suited her purpose. Her husband wouldn’t know that it was she who had gone to him.

Sithas stepped closer to her. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I lie?”

His open hand caught her across the cheek with a loud smack. The force of his blow sent her tumbling backward to the floor. With a burning face, she stood up, her eyes spitting fire at him.

“Vanesti will stay on the plains,” Sithas declared as she turned and fled. He turned to the window, numb, and stared to the west. He wondered about the stranger his brother had become.

*

“You believed that you could come here to kill me?” General Giarna looked at Suzine with mild amusement. The old woman backed against the closed door of his cottage. She had picked up the broken blade of her knife, but the weapon felt useless and futile, for it couldn’t harm her enemy. Thunder rumbled outside as another storm swept across the camp.

“Your death would be the greatest thing that could happen to Krynn.” She spoke bravely, but her mind was locked by fear. How could she have been so stupid as to come here alone, thinking she could harm this brutal warrior?

Instead, she had become his prisoner.

Her heart quailed as she remembered the man’s dark tortures, his means of gaining information from his captives. And no captive had ever possessed such valuable information as the wife of his chief enemy.

Now the general laughed heartily, placing his hands on his hips and leaning backward like a young man. “My death, you should know, is not so easily attained.”

Suzine stared at him.

“Do you remember the last night of General Barnet?”

She would never forget that awful, shriveled corpse, cast aside by General Giarna like an empty shell, drained of all its life.

“My powers come from places you cannot begin to understand!”

He paced in agitation, looking at her.

“There are gods who care for people of power, gods whose names are only whispered in the dead of night, for fear of frightening the children!”

General Giarna whirled again, his brow furrowed in concentration. “There is Morgion, god of disease and decay. I tell you, he can be bought! I pay him in lives, and he saves his curse from my flesh! And there are others – Hiddukel, Sargonnas! And of course —” his voice dropped to a whisper; his body quivered, and he looked at Suzine “— the Queen of Darkness, Takhisis herself! They say that she is banished, but that’s a lie. She is patient and she is generous. She bestows her powers on those who earn her favor!

“It is the power of life, in all its aspects! It allows me to be strong and young, while those around me grow old and die!”

Now he stared directly at her, and there seemed to be genuine anguish in his voice. “You might have shared this with me! You were a woman of power. You would have made a fitting partner for me! Who knows, one day we might have ruled Ergoth itself!”

“Your madness consumes you,” Suzine replied.

“It is not madness!” he hissed. “You cannot kill me. No human can kill me! Nor a dwarf, nor an elf. None may slay me!”

General Giarna paced restlessly. A steady beat of rain suddenly began pounding on the roof, forcing him to raise his voice. “Not only do I remain young and vigorous, but I am also invulnerable!” He looked at her sideways, slyly. I even had my men capture a griffon so that I might devour it and take over its aura. Now not even one of those beasts – the bane of this long war – can claim my blood.

“But enough of this talk,” said Giarna, suddenly rough. He took her arm and pulled her to a chair, throwing her into it.

“My spies tell me that the Wildrunners prepare an attack. They will move on my headquarters here because they have learned of our plans to ambush the griffons.”

Suzine looked at him dumbly.

“No doubt you know the route of march they will take when they come west.

You will tell me. Be sure of this, you will tell me. I will simply move my ambush and consummate the victory that has eluded me for so long.”

Fear pulsed hotly in Suzine’s mind. She did know! Many nights she had been present during battle planning between Parnigar and Kith-Kanan. The other officers had ignored her, assuming that she wasn’t listening, but out of curiosity, she had paid attention and absorbed most of the details.

“The only question is —” Giarna’s voice was a deep bass warning “— will you tell me now or afterward?”

Her mind focused with exceptional clarity. She heard the rain beating steadily against the wooden frame of the house. She thought of her children and her husband, and then she knew.

There was a way – an escape for her! But she had to act fast, before she had second thoughts.

Her bleeding fingers, still clutching the knife blade, jerked upward. Giarna saw the movement, an expression of mild annoyance flickering across his face.

The crone already knew she couldn’t harm him!

Him. In that instant, he recognized his mistake as the keen edge sliced through Suzine’s own neck. A shower of bright blood exploded from the torn artery, covering the general as the old woman slumped to the ground at his feet.

*

One-Tooth plodded through yet another thunderstorm. His march, already an epic by hill giant standards, had taken him through the foothills of his beloved mountains and across hundreds of miles of flatlands.

How did people ever live around here? He wondered at a life without the comforting rocky heights. He felt vulnerable and naked on these open prairies of grass.

Of course, his journey was made easier by the fact that such inhabitants as he encountered fled in panic at his approach, giving him a free sampling of whatever food had been bubbling on the stove or whatever milk might be chilling in the damp cellar.

The giant still didn’t know why he had embarked upon this quest or what his ultimate destination would be. But his feet swung easily below him, and the miles continued to fall behind. He felt young again, more spry than he had in decades.

And he was propelled by an inchoate sense of destiny. When his march ended, that was where his destiny would be found.

Chapter 32

ONE WEEK LATER

Rain lashed at the griffon and its rider, but the pair pressed on through the storm. Though the day was hours old, the horizon around them remained twilit and dim, so heavy was the gray blanket of clouds. Arcuballis flew low, seeking a place to land, cringing still closer to the earth against sudden blasts of lightning that seemed to warn them from the sky.

Finally Kith-Kanan found it – the small house in the center of the farmstead, down the trail where the coachman had seen Suzine disappear. Parnigar had showed him the trail two miles back, but he had flown past the clearing twice.

So closely entwined were the overhanging branches that he hadn’t even noticed it.

The trailhead was more than two miles away, and she couldn’t have walked much farther than this. Yet there seemed to be nothing else besides anonymous woods for several miles in all directions. This had to be the place.

Arcuballis dove quickly to earth, dropping like a stone between the limbs of the broad elms. The griffon landed in a crouch, and Kith’s sword was in his hand.

The door to the small house stood partially open, slamming and banging against its frame as the wind gusts shifted direction. The yard around the house was churned to mud, mired by the hooves of countless horses. Blackened pits showed where great cook fires had burned, but now these were simply holes filled with sodden ash.

Cautiously Kith-Kanan dismounted and approached the house. He pushed the door fully open and saw that it consisted of one main room, and that room was now a shambles. Overturned tables, broken chairs, a pile of discarded uniforms, and a collection of miscellaneous debris all contributed to the disarray.

He began to pick through debris, kicking things with his boots and moving big pieces with his free hand, always holding his longsword at the ready. He found little of worth until, near the back corner, his persistence was rewarded.

A tingle of apprehension ran along his spine as he uncovered a wooden box he recognized instantly, for it was the one Suzine had used to store her mirror. Kneeling, he pulled it from beneath a moldy saddle blanket. He opened the top, and his reflection stared back at him. The mirror had remained intact.

Then as he looked, the image in the glass grew pale and wavery, and suddenly the picture became something else entirely.

He saw a black-cloaked human riding a dark horse, leading a column of men through the rain. The human army was on the march. He could recognize no landmarks, no signposts in the murky scene. But he knew that the humans were moving.

Obviously the planned ambush of the Windriders was suspected and now would have to be cancelled. But where did the humans march? Kith had a sickening flash of Sithelbec, practically defenseless since most of the garrison had marched into the field with the Wildrunners. Could General Giarna be that bold?

A more hideous thought occurred to him. Had Suzine betrayed him, revealing their battle plans to the human commander? Did the enemy march somewhere unknown to set up a new ambush? He couldn’t bring himself to believe this, yet neither could he ignore the evidence that she had been here at the human command post.

Where was Suzine? In his heart, he knew the answer.

Grimly he mounted Arcuballis and took off. He made his way back to the east, toward the spearhead of his army, which he had ordered to march westward in an attempt to catch the human army in its camp. Now he knew that he had to make new plans – and quickly.

It took two days of searching before the proud griffon finally settled to earth, in a damp clearing where Kith had spotted the elven banner.

Here he found Parnigar and Vanesti and the rest of the Wildrunner headquarters. This group marched with several dozen bodyguards, trying to remain in the approximate center of the far-flung regiments. Because of the weather, the march columns were separated even more than usual, so that the small company camped this night in relative isolation.

“They’ve broken camp,” announced Parnigar, without preamble.

“I know. Their base camp is abandoned. Have you discovered where they’ve gone?”

Kith’s worst fears were confirmed by Parnigar’s answer. “East, it looks like. There are tracks leading in every direction, as always, but it looks like they all swing toward the east a mile or two out of the camps.”

Again Kith-Kanan thought of the ungarrisoned fortress rising from the plains a hundred miles to the east.

“Can we attack?” asked Vanesti, unable to restrain himself any longer.

“You’ll stay here!” barked Kith-Kanan. He turned to Parnigar. “In the morning we’ll have to find them.”

“What? And leave me here alone? In the middle of nowhere?” Vanesti was indignant.

“You’re right,” Kith conceded with a sigh. “You’ll have to come. But you’ll also have to do what I tell you!”

“Don’t I always?” inquired the youth, grinning impishly.

*

General Giarna slouched in his saddle, aware of the tens of thousands of marching soldiers surrounding him. The Army of Ergoth crept like a monstrous snake to the east, toward Sithelbec. Outriders spread across a thirty-mile arc before them, seeking signs of the Wildrunners. Giarna wanted to meet his foe in open battle while the weather was unchanged, hoping that the storm would neutralize the elves’ flying cavalry. The Windriders had made his life very difficult over the years, and it would please him to fight a battle where the griffons wouldn’t be a factor.

Even in his wildest hopes, he hadn’t reckoned on weather as dismal as this. A day earlier, a tornado had swept through the supply train, killing more than a thousand men and destroying two weeks’ worth of provisions. Now many columns of his army blundered through the featureless landscape, lost. Every day a few more men were struck by lightning, crippled or killed instantly.

The general didn’t know that, even as he marched to the east, the elven army trudged westward, some twenty-five miles to the north. The Wildrunners sought the encampment of the human army. Both forces blundered forward in disarray, passing within striking range of each other, yet not knowing of their enemy’s presence.

General Giarna looked to his left, to the north. There was something out there! He sensed it, though he saw nothing. His intuition informed him that the presence that drew him was many miles away.

“There!” he cried, suddenly raising a black-gloved hand and pointing to the north. “We must strike northward! Now! With all haste!” Some companies of his army heard the command. Ponderously, under the orders of their sergeants-major, they wheeled to the left, preparing to strike out toward the north, into the rain and the hail – and, soon, the darkness. Others didn’t get the word. The ultimate effect of the maneuver spread the army across twice as much country as Giarna intended, opening huge gaps between the various brigades and adding chaos to an already muddled situation.

“Move, damn you!” The general cried, his voice taut. Lightning flashed over his head, streaks of fire lancing across the sky. Thunder crashed around them, sounding as if the world was coming apart.

Still the great formations continued their excruciating advance as the weary humans endeavored to obey Giarna’s hysterical commands.

He couldn’t wait. The scent drew him on like a hound to its prey. He wheeled his horse, kicking sharp spurs into the black steed’s flanks. Breaking away from the column of his army, he started toward the north ahead of his men.

Alone.

*

Warm winds surged across the chill waters of the Turbidus Ocean, south of Ergoth, collecting moisture and carrying it aloft until the water droplets loomed as monumental columns of black clouds, billowing higher until they confounded the eyes of earthbound observers by vanishing into the limitless expanse of the sky.

Lightning flashed, beginning as an occasional explosion of brightness but increasing in fierceness and tempo until the clouds marched along to a staccato tempo, great sheets of hot fire slashing through them in continuous volleys. The waters below trembled under the fury of the storm.

The winds swirled, propelled by the rising pressure of steam. Whirlwinds grew tighter, shaping into slender funnels, until a front of cyclones roared forward, tossing the ocean into a chaotic maelstrom of foam. Great waves rolled outward from the storm, propelled by lashing torrents of rain.

And then the storm passed onto land.

The mass of clouds and power roared northward, skirting the Kharolis Mountains as it veered slightly toward the east. Before it lay the plains, hundreds of miles of flat, sodden country, already deluged by thunder and rain.

The new storm surged onto the flatlands, unleashing its winds as if it knew that nothing could stand in its path.

*

A soaking Wildrunner limped through the brush, raising his hand to ward off the hail and wipe rain away from his face. Finally he broke into a clearing and saw the vague outlines of the command post. Finding it had been sheer luck.

He was one of two dozen men who had been sent with the report, in the hopes that one of them would reach Kith-Kanan.

“The Army of Ergoth!” he gasped, stumbling into the small house that served as the general’s headquarters. “It approaches from the south!”

“Damn!” Kith-Kanan instantly saw the terrible vulnerability of his army, stretched as it was into a long column marching east to west. Wherever the humans hit him, he would be vulnerable.

“How far?” he asked quickly.

“Five miles, maybe less. I saw a company of horsemen – a thousand or so. I don’t know how many other units are there.”

“You did well to bring me the news immediately.” Kith’s mind whirled. “If Giarna is attacking us, he must have something in mind. Still, I can’t believe he can execute an attack very well – not in this weather.”

“Attack them, uncle.”

Kith turned to look at Vanesti. His fresh-faced nephew’s eyes lit with enthusiasm. His first battle loomed.

“Your suggestion has merit,” he said, pausing for a moment. “It’s one thing that the enemy would never suspect. His grasp of the battle won’t be much greater than mine, if I’m on the offensive. And furthermore, I have no way to organize any kind of defense in this weather. Better to have the troops moving forward and catch the enemy off balance.”

“I’ll dispatch the scouts,” Parnigar noted. “We’ll inform every company that we can. It won’t be the whole army, you realize. There isn’t enough time, and the weather is too treacherous.”

“I know,” Kith agreed. “The Windriders, for one, will have to stay on the ground.” He looked at Arcuballis. The great creature rested nearby, his head tucked under one wing to protect himself from the rain.

“I’ll take Kijo and leave Arcuballis here.” The prospect made him feel somehow crippled, but as the storm increased around him, he knew that flight would be too dangerous a tactic.

He could only hope that his enemy’s attack would be equally haphazard. In this wish, he was rewarded, for even as the fight began, it moved out of the control of its commanders.

*

The two armies blundered through the rain. Each stretched along a front of several dozen miles, and great gaps existed in their formations. The Army of Ergoth lumbered north, and where its companies met elves, they fought them in confusing skirmishes. As often as not, they passed right through the widely spaced formations of the Wildrunner Army, continuing into the nameless distance of the plains. The Wildrunners and their allies struck south. Like the humans, they encountered their enemy occasionally, and at other times met no resistance.

Skirmishes raged along the entire distance, between whatever units happened to meet each other in the chaos. Human horsemen rode against elven swords. Dwarven battle-axes chopped at Ergothian archers. Because of the noise and the darkness, a company might not know that its sister battalion fought for its life three hundred yards away, or that a band of enemy warriors had passed across their front a bare five minutes earlier.

But it didn’t matter. The real battle took shape in the clouds themselves.

Chapter 33

NIGHTFALL, MIDSUMMER,

YEAR OF THE CLOUD GIANT

Hail thundered through the woods, pounding trees into splinters and bruising exposed flesh. The balls of ice, as big across as steel pieces, quickly blanketed the ground. The roar of their impact drowned all attempts at communication.

Kith-Kanan, Vanesti, and Parnigar halted their plodding horses, seeking the minimal shelter provided by the overhanging boughs of a small grove of elms.

They were grateful that the storm hadn’t caught them on the open plains. Such a deluge could be extremely dangerous without shelter. Their two dozen bodyguards, all veterans of the House Protectorate, took shelter under neighboring trees. All the elves were silent, wet, and miserable.

They hadn’t seen another company of Wildrunners in several hours, nor had they encountered any sign of the enemy. They had blundered through the storms for the whole day, lashed by wind and rain, soaked and chilled, fruitlessly seeking sign of friend or foe.

“Do you know where we are?” Kith asked Parnigar. Around them, the pebbly residue of the storm had covered the earth with round, white balls of ice.

“I’m afraid not,” the veteran scout replied. “I think we’ve maintained a southerly heading, but it’s hard to tell when you can’t see more than two dozen feet ahead of you!”

All of a sudden Kith held up a hand. The hailstorm, with unsettling abruptness, had ceased.

“What is it?” hissed Vanesti, looking around them, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know Kith admitted. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

The black horse exploded from the bushes with shocking speed, its dark rider leaning forward along the steed’s lathered neck. Sharp hooves pounded the ice-coated earth, sending slivers of crushed hailstones flying with each step. The attacker charged past two guards, and Parnigar saw the glint of a sword. The blade moved with stunning speed, slaying both elven bodyguards with quick chops.

“We’re attacked!” Parnigar shouted. The veteran scout seized his sword and leaped into his saddle, spurring the steed forward.

Kith-Kanan, followed by Vanesti, ducked around the broad tree trunk just in time to see Parnigar collide with the attacker. The brutal impact sent the elf’s mare reeling side-ways and then tumbling to the ground. The horse screamed as the elven warrior sprang free, crouching to face the black-cloaked human on his dark war-horse.

“Giarna!” hissed Kith-Kanan, instantly recognizing the foe.

“Really?” gasped Vanesti, inching forward for a better look.

“Stay back!” growled the elven general.

The black steed abruptly reared, lashing out with its forehooves. One of them caught Parnigar on the skull, and the elf fell heavily to the ground.

Frantically Kith looked toward his bow, tied securely to his saddlebags on the other side of the broad tree. Cursing, he drew his sword and darted toward the fight.

With savage glee, the human rider leaped from his saddle, straddling Parnigar as the stunned elf struggled to move. As Kith ran toward them, the human thrust his sword through the scout’s chest, pinning him to the ground with the keen blade.

Parnigar flopped on his back, stuck to the earth. Blood welled around the steel blade, and the icy pebbles of hail beneath him quickly took on a garish shade of red. In moments, his struggles faded to weak twitching, and then to nothing.

By that time, Kith had lunged at the black swordsman. The elf slashed with his sword but gaped in surprise as the quick blow darted past Giarna. The man’s fist hammered into Kith-Kanan’s belly, and the elf grunted in pain as he staggered backward, gasping for air.

With a sneer, the human pulled out his blade, turning to face two more Wildrunners, Kith’s bodyguards, who charged recklessly forward. His sword flashed once, twice, and the two elves dropped, fatally slashed across their throats.

“Fight me, you bastard!” growled Kith-Kanan.

“That is a pleasure I have long anticipated!” General Giarna’s face broke into a savage grin. His teeth appeared to gleam as he threw his head back and laughed maniacally.

A quartet of veteran Wildrunners, all loyal and competent warriors of the House Protectorate, rushed General Giarna from behind. But the man whirled, his bloody sword cutting an arc through the air. Two of the guards fell, gutted, while the other two stumbled backward, horrified by their opponent’s quickness. Kith-Kanan could only stare in shock. Never had he seen a weapon wielded with such deadly precision.

The retreating elves moved backward too slowly. Giarna sprang after them, leaping like a cat and stabbing one of them through the heart. The other elf rushed in wildly. His head sailed from his body following a swathlike cut that the human made with a casual flick of his wrist.

“You monster!” The youthful scream caught Kith-Kanan’s attention. Vanesti had seized a sword from somewhere. Now he charged out from behind the elm trunk, lunging toward the murderous human general.

“No!” Kith-Kanan cried out in alarm, rushing forward to try to reach his nephew. His boot caught on a treacherous vine and he sprawled headlong, looking up to see Vanesti swinging his sword wildly.

Kith scrambled to his feet. Each of his movements seemed grotesquely slow, exaggerated beyond all reason. He opened his mouth to shout again, but he could only watch in horror.

Vanesti lost his balance following his wild attack, stumbling to the side. He tried to deflect the human’s straight-on stab, but the tip of General Giarna’s blade struck Vanesti at the base of his rib cage, penetrating his gut and slicing through his spine as it emerged from his back. The youth gagged and choked, sliding backward off the blade. He lay on his back, his hands clutching at the air.

*

The lord-major-chieftain supreme of Hillrock pressed forward, trudging resolutely through weather the like of which he had never experienced before. Hailstones pummeled him, rain lashed his face, and the wind roared and growled in its futile efforts to penetrate the hill giant’s heavy wolfskin cloak, a cloak he had worn proudly for forty years.

Yet One-Tooth plodded on, grimly determined to follow the compulsion that had drawn him here. He would see this trek through to its end. The burning drive that had led him this far seemed to grow more intense with each passing hour, until the giant broke into a lumbering trot, so anxious was his feeling that he neared his goal.

As he moved across the plains, a strange haze seemed to settle over his mind. He began to forget Hillrock, to forget the giantesses who were his wives, the small community that had always been his home. Instead, his mind drifted to the heights of his mountain range, to one snow-blanketed winter valley long age and a small, fire-warmed cave.

*

Later, elves who had lived for six hundred years swore that they had never before seen such a storm. The weather erupted across the plains with a violence that dwarfed the petty squabbles of the mortals on the ground. The thunderheads grew in frenzy, an explosive, seething mass of power that transcended anything in human or elven memory. The storms lashed the plains, striking with wind and fire and hail.

At nightfall, when darkness gathered across the already sodden plains on the night of the summer solstice, Solinari gleamed full and bright, high above the clouds, but no one on Krynn could see her.

Lightning erupted, hurling crackling bolts to the ground. Great cyclones of wind, miles across, whirled and roared. They spiraled and burst, a hundred angry funnel clouds that shrieked over the flat plains, leveling everything in their path.

The great battle of armies never occurred. Instead, a howling dervish of tornadoes formed in the west and roared across the plains, scattering the two forces before them, leaving tens of thousands of dead in their wake.

The most savage of the tornadoes swirled through the Army of Ergoth, scattering food wagons, killing horses and men, and sending the remnants fleeing in all directions.

But if the human army suffered the bulk of the death toll, the Wildrunners suffered the greatest destruction. Huge columns of black clouds, mushrooming into the heights of the distant sky, gathered around the great stone block of Sithelbec. Dark and foreboding, they collected in an awful ring about the city.

For hours, a dull stillness pervaded the air. Those who had sought shelter in Sithelbec fled, fearing the unnatural calm.

Then the lightning began anew. Bolts of energy lashed the city. They crackled into the stone towers of the fortress, exploding masonry and leaving the smell of scorched dust in the air. They seared the blocks of wooden buildings around the wall, and soon sheets of flame added to the destruction.

Like a cosmic bombardment, crackling spears of explosive electricity thundered into the stone walls and wooden roofs. Crushing and pounding, pummeling and bruising, the storm maintained its pressure as the city slowly collapsed into ruin.

*

Kith realized that he was screaming, spitting his hatred and rage at this monstrous human who had dogged his life for forty years. He threw caution aside in a desperate series of slashes and attacks, but each lunge found Giarna’s sword ready with a parry – and each moment of battle threatened to open a fatal gap in the elf’s defenses. Their blades clanged together with a force that matched the thunder. The two opponents hacked and chopped at each other, scrambling over deadfalls, pushing through soaking thorn bushes, driving forward in savage attacks or careful retreats. The rest of the House Protectorate bodyguards rushed, in a group, to their leader’s defense. The human’s blade was a deadly scythe, and soon the elves bled the last of their lives into the icy, hail-strewn ground.

It became apparent to Kith that Giarna toyed with him. The man was unbeatable. He could have ended the fight at virtually any moment, and he seemed completely impervious to Kith’s blows. Even when, in a lucky moment, the elf’s blade slashed against the human’s skin, no wound opened.

The man continued to allow Kith to rush forward, to expend himself on these desperate attacks, and then to stumble back, seemingly inches ahead of a mortal blow.

Finally he laughed, his voice a sharp, animal bark.

“You see now that, for all your arrogance, you cannot live forever. Even elven lives must come to an end!”

Kith-Kanan stepped back, gasping for breath and staring at the hated enemy before him. He said nothing as his throat expanded, gulping air.

“Perhaps you will die with as much dignity as your wife,” suggested Giarna, musing.

Kith froze. “What do you mean?”

“Merely that the whore thought she could do what all of your armies have been unable to do. She tried to kill me!”

The elf could only stare in shock. Suzine! By the gods, why would she attempt something so mad, so impossible?

“Of course, she paid the price for her stupidity, as you will do as well! My only regret was that she took her own life before I could draw the information I needed from her.”

Kith-Kanan felt a sense of horror and guilt. Of course she had done this. He had left her no other way in which to aid him.

“She was braver and finer than we will ever be,” he said, his voice firm despite his grief.

“Words!” Giarna snorted. “Use them wisely, elf. You have precious few left!”

Vanesti lay on the ground, so still and cold that he might have been a pale patch of mud. Near him, Parnigar lay equally still, his eyes staring sightlessly upward, his fingers curled reflexively into fists. His warm blood had melted the hailstones around him, so that he lay in an icy crimson pool.

Marshaling his determination, Kith charged, recklessly slashing at his opponent in a desperate bid to break his icy control. But Giarna stepped to the side, and Kith found himself on his back, looking up into gaping black holes, the deadened eyes of the man who would be his killer. The elf tried to scramble away, to spring to his feet, but his cloak snagged on a twisted limb beside him.

Kith kicked out, then fell back, helpless.

Trapped between two logs, Kith-Kanan couldn’t move. Desperately, feeling a rage that was nonetheless overpowering for its helplessness, he glared at the blade that was about to end his life. Giarna stood over him, slowly raising the bloodstained weapon, as if the steel intended to savor the final, fatal thrust.

The crushing blow of a club knocked Giarna to the side before the killing blow could fall. Stuck behind the deadfall, Kith couldn’t see where the blow had come from, but he saw the human stumble, watched the great weapon swing through his field of vision.

Snarling with rage, Giarna whirled, ready to slay whatever impertinent foe distracted him from his quarry. He felt no fear. Was he not impervious to the attack of elf, dwarf, or human?

But this was no elf. Instead, he stared upward at a creature that towered over his head. The last thing Giarna saw before the club crushed his skull and scattered his brains across the muddy ground was a lone white tooth, jutting proudly from the attacker’s jaw.

*

“He’s alive,” whispered Kith-Kanan, scarcely daring to breathe. He kneeled beside Vanesti, noting the slow rise and fall of his nephew’s chest. Steam wisped from his nostrils at terrifyingly long intervals.

“Help little guy?” inquired One-Tooth.

“Yes.” Kith smiled through his tears, looking with affection at the huge creature who must have marched hundreds of miles to find him. He had asked him why, and the giant had merely shrugged.

One-Tooth reached down and grasped the bundle that was Vanesti. They wrapped him in a cloak, and now Kith rigged a small lean-to beneath the shelter of some leafy branches.

“I’ll light a fire,” said the elf. “Maybe that will draw some of the Wildrunners.”

But the soaked wood refused to burn, and so the trio huddled and shivered through the long night. Then in the morning, they heard the sound of horses pushing along a forest trail.

Kith wormed his way through the bushes, discovering a column of Wildrunner scouts. Several veterans, recognizing their leader, quickly approached him, but they had to overcome their fear of the hill giant when they came upon the scene of the savage fight.

Gingerly they rigged a sling for the youth and prepared to make the grueling ride to Sithelbec.

“This time you’ll come home with me,” Kith told the giant. In the thinning mist, they started toward the east. Not for several days, until they met more survivors of his army – some who had had word from the fortress – did they learn that the home they marched to had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble.

Epilogue

AUTUMN

(2177 PC)

Shapeless blocks of stone jutted into the sky, framed by the burned-out timbers that outlined walls, gates, and other structures of wood. Sithelbec lay in ruins. The tornadoes and lightning had razed the fortress more effectively than any human attack could have done. The surviving Wildrunners collected on the plains around the wreckage, nursing their wounded and trying to piece together the legacy of the disaster.

Only gradually did they become aware that the humans were gone. The Army of Ergoth had broken and fled, driven by nature to do what forty years of elven warfare had been unable to accomplish. The surviving humans streamed toward the lush farmlands of Daltigoth, the war forgotten.

The Theiwar dwarves – those who survived – headed back to Thorbardin. And the elves who had fought for the human cause returned to the woodlands, there to strive for survival in the ruins left by the storms of spring.

Dunbarth Ironthumb organized the ranks of his Hylar legion, most of whom had been fortunate enough to find riverbank caves that had sheltered them during the worst of the storm.

“It’s back to good, old-fashioned rock walls and a stone ceiling over my head!” announced the gruff veteran, clasping Kith-Kanan’s hand before he embarked on the long march.

“You’ve earned it,” said the elf sincerely. For a long time, he watched the receding column of stocky figures until it disappeared into the mists to the south.

Sithas journeyed to the plains once more, two months after the great storm.

He came to get his son, to bring him home. Vanesti would live, though barring a miracle, he would never stand on his own legs.

The twins stood before the ruins of Sithelbec. The city was a blackened patch of earth, a chaotic jumble of charred timbers and broken, twisted stone.

The Speaker of the Stars met his brother’s eyes.

“Tamanier Ambrodel has gone to Daltigoth. He, together with an ambassador from Thorbardin – a Hylar ambassador – will arrange a treaty. We will see the swords sheathed once and for all.”

“Those swords that remain,” said Kith quietly. He thought of Parnigar and Kencathedrus – and Suzine – and all the others who had perished in the course of this war.

“This war has changed many things – perhaps everything,” observed Sithas quietly. Hermathya told me! his mind screamed silently. He wanted to accuse his brother, to set this discussion on the solid ground of truth, but he couldn’t.

Kith nodded, silent.

These lands, Sithas thought, with a look at the wreckage around him. Were they worth clinging to? They had been held at a cost in lives that was beyond measuring. Yet what had they won?

Humans would never be totally banished from the western lands, the Speaker knew. Kith-Kanan would certainly allow those who had fought for his cause to remain. And the elves who had opposed them – what would be their fate?

Permanent banishment? Sithas didn’t want to think of further strife, further suffering inflicted upon his people. Yet at the same time, he was opposed to further changes.

There was only one way now to preserve the purity of Silvanesti. Just as the infected limb of a diseased person must be removed to save the whole, so must the infected society of his nation be cut away to preserve the sanctity of Silvanesti.

“I’m granting you the lands extending from here to the west,” announced Sithas firmly. “They are no longer part of Silvanesti; You may do with them as you like.”

“I have thought about this,” replied Kith, his voice a match for his brother’s strength. His words surprised Sithas, for he had thought his announcement would be unanticipated. Yet Kith-Kanan, too, seemed to sense that they were no longer part of the same world.

“I will build my new capital to the west, among the forested hills.” Qualinesti, he thought, though he didn’t say the name aloud. To himself, he vowed that it would be a land of free elves, a place that would never go to war for the sake of some mistaken purity.

As the two brothers parted, the clouds remained leaden over the storm-lashed plains. The elves, once one nation, henceforth became two.

Covenant of the Forge

(2150 PC)

Prologue

A GLIMPSE OF PROPHECY

Except for the dragons, who sprang from the world itself, the first people of Krynn were the elves. This was a conclusion reached by Mistral Thrax early in his search for certainties among the complexities of an uncertain world.

Few would recall his early pronouncements regarding the sequence of origins, because in those days Mistral Thrax was considered to be full of strong ale and vagaries, and because few among the people of the high mountains really cared about such things as who came first and why. Such thoughts were for the very old, who had nothing better to do than think them. Even then, when he began his studies of lore after being maimed in a rockfall, Mistral Thrax was more than two hundred years of age.

Thus little note was made of his reckonings. But the logic of his conclusions satisfied Mistral Thrax and led him onward in his studies.

The elves, he believed, were the first attempts of the gods – particularly of Reorx the Life-Giver – to create people of their own design upon the world which before that time had only its own creatures, the dragons, and the animals which were their prey.

So the gods discussed it and created the elves. The elves were beautiful, Mistral Thrax admitted, in an elvish way, but it was his belief that the gods grew disappointed after a time because the elves – being elves – were essentially decorative but not particularly functional. They were content simply to live long lives and to exist. They did nothing of real value, in the opinion of Mistral Thrax. In all his studies, the old dwarf found only one thing that the elves had done that was worthy of note. They had claimed the forests of Silvanesti as their home, thereby upsetting the dragons, many of whom considered Silvanesti as their own.

This, according to Mistral Thrax, was why so much of history was punctuated by periodic skirmishes and at least one full-scale war, starting with dragon attacks against the elves.

In their concern for proper balance, the gods tried again. This time, they created the ogres. And again, as time passed, they grew disappointed. The ogres had been a promising race – though unimaginative and boring – but with time they began to deteriorate in their culture and eventually they became the ogres of the present – great sullen, surly brutes who were at best a nuisance and could be a real threat.

Various gods, Mistral Thrax decided, had then tried their hands at designing a better kind of people. Which gods might have originated such monstrosities as goblins and minotaurs and the like was a question Mistral Thrax ignored, on the assumption that those particular gods were probably ashamed of what they had done, and it was not his business to lay blame.

But Reorx the Life-Giver seemed to have recognized the problems besetting his world and turned his full attention to designing the perfect race of people. As Mistral Thrax viewed it, Reorx must have created humans next, using the basic model of the elves but instilling within the new creatures great energies, driven by the realization of short life spans. Again, in Mistral’s opinion, it was a good try but not yet perfect. Humans proved to be far too chaotic a race for Reorx’s taste, he was sure, and somehow even managed to so distort their basic strengths that some of them turned into gnomes and, possibly, even kender (though there was some evidence, Mistral conceded, that kender might have originated from some unexpected deviation among the elves).

His intention and his vow – in his two hundredth year – had been to devote the rest of his life to the study of lore. Thus, a hundred years later, being still alive, he was still at it. Copious armloads of scrolls did Mistral Thrax produce through those years, dwelling on the mysteries of the world and dealing with them one by one, using good, dwarven logic. But the thread through all of his theories was that Reorx, once determined to create the proper race of people, did not stop trying until he had done so.

The true race – the masterpiece of the life-giver – was all that any god could have wanted in a chosen people. Not as tall and awkward as humans, and neither as short-lived as humans nor as indecently long-lived as elves, the new race was equipped with all the skills people needed. They made fine tools and excelled in using them. Sturdy and strong of limb, they could hew stone as other races might hew soft wood. They had the imagination and inventiveness that ogres lacked, the sense of progress and stubborn determination that elves lacked, and the continuity of purpose that humans lacked.

Through trial and error, Reorx in his wisdom had finally created the proper people for the world of Krynn – the race of dwarves. Legends held that Reorx was so pleased with his best people that, originally, he named them all Smith, though that proved so confusing that they gave themselves other personal names as needed, and eventually none of them – so far as Mistral Thrax knew – were named Smith.

Thus did Mistral Thrax clarify the origin of the dwarven race, for any who cared to consider it.

From there, being now more than three hundred years old and still alive, he went on to summarize the history of the world to date.

The dwarves in the early times had scattered over the face of the land, seeking the highest places, and tribes had become separated. There were legends of a place called Kal-Thax, where many had settled, and maybe other such places as well, but the dwarves of Mistral Thrax’s acquaintance – the Calnar – had all wound up in the realm of Thorin and had been there for a very long time.

Fact and legend became very confused on many points, but some things were clear:

— The race of humans had spread and multiplied until no one knew who or where they all were.

— The race of elves had clung to the forests of Silvanesti through a dozen dragon sieges and one full-scale war, though some elves had migrated to the west and now lived somewhere else.

— There were still ogres here and there, including a large colony to the south of Thorin, at a place called Bloten. The original architecture of Thorin was of ogre design, but had been abandoned long ago, and after a few skirmishes with the Calnar, the ogres tended nowadays to leave the dwarves alone.

— And somewhere in the now-distant past – at least four hundred years ago, by the reckoning of Mistral Thrax – magic had been introduced upon Krynn. Some said that Reorx himself had done it, led astray by other gods. Some said magic came in the form of a gray gemstone that descended upon the world and was captured for a time by humans, then released by gnomes. There was even a legend of a brave and tragic dwarven fisherman who had stood in the path of the source of magic and had tried to stop it by knocking it down with his spear.

But wherever it came from, magic had come upon Krynn, and for the dwarves it was the ultimate abomination – a power without logic, a force without the rational, comfortable rules of stone and metal, light and dark, moons and mountains, and the rhythm of hammers and drums.

The dwarves wanted no part of magic, and they ignored it. But its effects were felt.

This latest dragon war in distant Silvanesti, for example, was far worse than the any of the previous disputes there. This time, the dragons had attacked using magic, and the results were widespread. Little was known in Thorin about the war itself, except that as the elves clung to their forest and fought back, the war spread to other realms. Everywhere now, throughout the known lands, great migrations were under way, and the dwarves and their neighbors were much concerned. Evil was afoot, and everyone knew it.

On a spring evening, when the light from the sun tunnels began to dim, Mistral Thrax pondered over his scrolls and what they all might mean. Within the threads of fact and legend which he attempted to weave – as one might weave a tapestry of many colors in order to see the pictures it would reveal – were puzzling, disturbing hints of more to come. Mistral Thrax had attempted to capture history, and in grasping it realized that it went both ways – back through time to what had been and forward somehow to hint at what might yet be. And not all of what he saw there pleased him.

He sensed that change was at hand – a change that would be painful for all of his people. He sensed that, somehow, magic might touch the lives of the Calnar, and that nothing would ever again be the same.

High-dwellers, their human neighbors called the Calnar. People of the high peaks. In the dwarven manner of speech, the word for that was Hylar, and somehow that word held special meaning in the threads leading toward the future.

That, and a tiny piece of legend he had found, which seemed to fit nothing in the past and therefore tasted prophetic – a legend that somewhere, some time, someone very important was to be named Damon. That, the legend said, would be the name of the Father of Kings.

As he had so many times in the past when pondering such things, Mistral Thrax sighed and rubbed hard old hands against his aching skull. Then he put away his scrolls, picked up his crutch, and turned down the wick of his lamp. It was a long walk from his cubicle to Lobard’s establishment on the main concourse, but at the end of the walk little comforts awaited him, as they did each evening – a mug of good ale, pot meat, and a half loaf of rich Calnar bread.

Never in all the years he had been searching had Mistral Thrax found real answers to his questions in the ale at Lobard’s, but it eased his aches and did no harm.

Part I

THE DRUMS OF THORIN

The Dwarven Realm of Thorin

Khalkist Mountains

Century of Wind

Decade of Oak

Year of Iron

Chapter 1

FIRST BLOOD

Sledge Two-Fires eased back on the reins as the patrol entered Crevice Pass, and Piquin responded. The big horse slowed his mile-eating trot to a fast walk, then slowed again as the silver bit on his tongue retained its slight pressure. The oiled saddle on his back creaked softly, and the fine steel mesh of his skirt whispered with the shift.

Behind Sledge Two-Fires, the others also slowed, turning bright-helmed heads as they studied the rising slopes on either side of the trail. Just ahead, the slopes closed in and became the steep, brushy cliffs that gave the pass its name. Sledge Two-Fires glanced back the way they had come. Late sunlight slanted into the pass, and shadows were climbing the backtrail as the sun lowered toward the jagged peaks of the Suncradles in the distance.

Two hours of daylight remained, time enough to make it through Crevice Pass and make night camp on the far side, where the sugar fields began. From there, in evening, the lights of Thorin would be visible across the Hammersong Valley. Enough daylight remained, providing the ride through the narrow pass was uneventful. But Sledge Two-Fires felt the hackles rising beneath his helmet and raised himself high in his tall saddle to peer around, squinting and frowning. Something seemed out of place – something that for a long moment he could not identify, then did. It was too quiet. On a bright midsummer evening like this, with the sun above the Suncradles by the width of a fist, there should be sounds in the mountain wilds. There should be eve-hawks wheeling and whistling above and cliff pigeons homing from the fields. There should be squirrels a-chatter and rabbits scurrying through the brush – a whole chorus of muted wilderness sounds.

But there was nothing. It was as though the world had gone silent, and the silence gave the closing cliffs ahead an ominous feeling.

Sledge had never cared for Crevice Pass. The place was perfect for ambush, a narrow defile where enemies could lurk unseen above the trail and attack at will. Once, long ago, the Calnar themselves had used it so. Still, not since those long-ago times had such a thing as ambush ever happened to a Thorin border patrol.

After all, Sledge thought, who was there now to make an ambush? Ogres? One or two of the brutes might conceive of such a thing, but despite their size and ferocity, no one or two ogres would be a match for a mounted, armored dwarven patrol, and even the most vicious-tempered ogre would realize that. Humans, then? There were humans everywhere these days, more all the time, it seemed. Thorin was flanked by human realms north and south, but not in the memory of anyone had there been serious conflict with Golash and Chandera. The people of those regions depended upon the dwarves of Thorin for many of their commodities, just as the dwarves depended upon the humans for trade.

Wild humans? There were those, too, of course – traveling bands of nomads, occasional clots of fugitives from some distant conflict or another. Sledge and his patrol had seen bands of humans in the distance during the weeks of their patrol – more, it seemed, than ever before. But the wanderers had kept their distance, and none seemed to pose any real threat. It was following and observing one such group that had caused the patrol to be here now, miles north of the usual route. Normally, returning patrols crossed the ridge at Chandera Road, not Crevice Pass.

Elves, then? All the elves that Sledge knew about were far away to the southeast, beyond the Khalkists. In times past, a few of them had visited Thorin for Balladine, but not in recent years. The elves had their hands full, it was said, fighting dragons for control of their beloved forests. Besides, there had never been conflict between the elves and the Calnar. They were both intelligent races and had no reason to fight.

Still, a sense of foreboding hung about Sledge, seeming to come from the cleft ahead. It made his beard twitch.

Agate Coalglow and Pierce Shard had eased their mounts forward to flank their leader. Now Agate noticed the same thing that Sledge had noted a moment before. “It’s quiet,” the split-bearded dwarf said. “No birds.”

“None,” Sledge agreed. “There may be someone in the Crevice.”

“No sign of anyone,” Pierce said, studying the rising banks.

“Probably nothing,” the leader admitted. “I’m just feeling hunchy. If there were trouble, our scout would have seen it and reported back.”

“Not much that quick-eyed Dalin’s likely to miss,” Agate nodded. “He’s probably waiting for us right now at the sugar fields. You have travel nerves, Sledge. It’ll do us all good to get back home. Let somebody else do border patrol next shift.”

Sledge took one more hard look at the crevice ahead and shrugged. “You’re right. Travel nerves.” He raised his hand and swept it forward. “By twos!” he called. “Tomorrow we’ll be in Thorin Keep!”

Piquin needed only the lightest heel-tap to pick up his long-legged gate, and the patrol trotted up the incline as the crevice walls grew around them. The sun now was directly behind, and their long shadows stretched out ahead, into the silent pass.

A mile went by, silently except for the echoes of their horses’ shod hooves and the occasional rattle of swords in their bucklers. Another mile, and the crest of the trail was in sight – the narrowest part of the defile, where stepped stone walls stood above the strewn floor like ramparts, and clear sky shone between them. From there, the pass would widen again, and the trail would be downhill all the way to the outer ford, just above the roaring canyon where the Bone River joined the Hammersong.

Tomorrow they would cross the two rivers, with Thorin in sight. Tomorrow night they would sleep in their own secure beds.

Nearing the crest, the dwarves felt a surge of relief. Sledge’s mood had touched them all, and there had been tension in the climb. But now the crest was just ahead, and beyond was the open sky where crevice walls slanted away. The sky of Thorin. They were past the worst of the defile, and nothing had happened.

“I’ll pay for a keg of Lobard’s best ale tomorrow evening,” Agate Coalglow offered, turning to glance at those behind him. “As soon as Sledge has given our report to Willen Ironmaul, I promise it. One full keg. After that it’s up to someone else to ease our patrol aches.”

“I’ll buy the second keg,” Pierce Shard offered, “if that’s the sort of ease you have in mind.”

“I doubt if that’s it,” someone in the ranks chuckled. “Agate finds more comfort in the bright eyes of Lona Anvil’s-Cap these days than any of Lobard’s ale can match.”

“Mind your own bright eyes, and keep them sharp,” Agate snapped. “We’re not out of this crack yet.”

At the very top of the trail’s crest, Sledge Two-Fires scanned the towering banks above, then glanced down as Piquin snorted. The dwarf’s eyes went wide, and he hauled on the reins. “Arms!” he bellowed. “Shields up! It’s a trap!”

Just ahead, where the trail began its downward slope, lay two still forms. Dalin Ironbar would scout for no more patrols. He was dead. A few feet away lay the body of his horse, a broken javelin protruding from its ribs.

“Eyes high!” Sledge shouted. “Defend!”

But it was too late. Even as the word “defend” left his lips, an arrow flew from above to thud into his exposed throat and downward into his chest.

In an instant, the air sang with the whines of arrows and bolts, the luffing whisper of thrown spears, and the clatter of flung stones.

Agate Coalglow saw his leader fall and raised his own oval shield just in time to deflect a deadly arrow. He dodged another, and a third buried its ripping head in his thigh just below his buckler. Two arrows protruded from his horse’s neck, and Agate flung himself from the saddle as the big animal began to pitch and dance, blind with pain. He lit hard on the stony trail, rolled, and slid behind a fallen boulder as other arrows sought him, whining down from the steep slopes above.

There were men up there. Where moments ago there had been nothing, now the slopes were alive with humans springing from hiding. A human voice, harsh and commanding, shouted, “Block that trail! Don’t let any of them escape! Kill the dwarves! Kill them all!”

Near at hand, Agate heard a familiar whirring sound and glanced around. Pierce Shard was still in his saddle, his shield dancing here and there as his horse spun and pivoted. Pierce was blocking bolts frantically, spinning his mesh sling while desperate eyes roved the slopes above. He found a target, let the sling fly, and a fist-sized stone whistled upward. Above, someone screamed, and a rough-bearded human pitched outward from the brushy face of the cliff to land in a sprawl not a dozen feet from where Agate huddled.

The pain in his thigh was excruciating, but Agate gritted his teeth, cleared his misted eyes, and drew his steel sword. He broke off the shaft standing from his thigh and got to his feet. Deflecting an arrow with his gauntlet, he staggered slightly and roared a war cry. Then, crouching, his sturdy legs pumping, he headed up the nearest slope, directly into the face of the attack.

His charge caught some of the humans off guard. Arrows whisked past him, and then he was on a narrow ledge in the midst of a gang of them, and his sword flew and danced in silver arcs that abruptly turned bright red. A human fell from the ledge, then another and another as the raging dwarf continued his charge, right into the thick of them.

Six ambushers fell from that ledge, their blood spraying in the light of the setting sun, before one of them got behind Agate Coalglow and put a spear through his heart. Even then, with the spearhead thrusting from his chest, Agate managed one more cut with his dripping sword, and a severed human hand dropped into the shadows below.

He staggered then, dropping his sword and sinking to his knees. Dimly, he heard the sounds of combat echoing back and back in the narrow crevice. Some of the Calnar, somewhere, were still fighting, making the ambush as costly as they could for the humans who had sprung it. But there was no chance, and Agate knew that as his world went dark. Too many humans! Fifty or more of them, at least. Maybe a hundred, and only fourteen dwarves – or whatever number remained now.

“Thorin!” he tried to whisper as blood rushed from his mouth. “Thorin-Dwarfhome! Thorin-Everbardin … hope and comfort, welcome this one home. …”

Below, in the bottom of Crevice Pass, shadows crept across a tumble of carnage. Here a dwarf crouched behind his dead horse, still fending off attackers. There, another – blood dripping from many cuts – used his shield as a weapon of attack in a last effort to regain his fallen sword.

But it was over now, as howling humans boiled into the narrow pass to complete the work of slaughter. The last of the Calnar to die was a fierce young defender named Tap Bronzeplate. As the final arrow pierced him, he tried to say the words that Agate Coalglow had whispered. But only some of them got past his lips.

“Thorin,” he gasped. “Thorin-Everbardin!”

Chapter 2

SONG OF THE DRUMS

Here on the outer shelves of Thorin, lush meadows crowned the gigantic, stair-step terraces carved into the slopes of soaring mountainsides. Vast fields of grain formed curved mosaics, vivid patterns of color in the late morning sunlight cresting saberlike peaks to the east. On the lower terraces, the fields were hues of gold and deep red where early crops ripened. Above these were patterns of rich pastels, and higher still – where the rising terraces flanked floral gardens – were greens as deep and rich as emeralds.

Here, more than anywhere else in the realm of Thorin, the landscape and the creature-works had the look of ogre about them. Not like the brutish, dark lairs of the ogres who yet lurked among the wild mountain passes, far beyond the neighboring lands of Thorin, Golash, and Chandera, but the solid, regimented design of ancient times when the ogres – some said – had ruled all the lands of the Khalkists.

It was in the scope and breadth of the terracing, in the precise spacing of the rising ways between terraces. Not in memory or certain lore had ogres dwelled here, and while ogres still were seen from time to time – lurking on the distant slopes – they and their kind were not the original builders of Thorin.

The ogres now were primitive, often savage creatures, wild in their ways and in their surroundings. But once there had been ogres of another kind. Ancient ancestors of the huge, brutish creatures of today, those ogres of the distant past had hewn mountainsides to their liking and had delved their cold, monotonous lairs into the very hearts of the peaks.

So said the wisest among the short, sturdy, energetic race that now occupied Thorin. This had once been the home of ogres. But the ogres fell from power and lost their skills. Over time, what might once have been a great civilization had deteriorated into savagery. What they left behind was theirs no more, the ballads said. Delvings belong to those who live within them, who hold and improve them. Thorin belonged now to the Calnar, by right of habitation and tradition.

Thorin now was Thorin-Everbardin, home of the Calnar.

On the outer shelves, the look of ancient ogre craft remained because the Calnar had found no need to improve it. The vast, rich meadows ranking the slopes of the highest peaks of the Khalkists served the purposes of the dwarves very nicely. Crops, flocks, and herds were rotated from level to level with the seasons, an enterprise as bustling and busy as the foundries and crafters’ halls within Thorin itself, deep in the stone heart of the mountain. Not in memory had the Calnar – the people known to their neighbors of other races simply as “the dwarves” – known famine.

Now midsummer’s harvest was proceeding in the lower fields and among the orchards and vineyards that flanked them. Now the drums had begun to speak on the sentinel crags above.

Colin Stonetooth, riding out from Thorin Keep to inspect the harvest, heard the talk of the drums and drew rein to look upward, knowing the distances would show him nothing of the drummers. Thorin was vast, and they were far above and far away. Yet their drums floated the muted thunder of the Call to Balladine on the bright air of morning, and the sound was good to hear.

Handil would be up there with them, of course. It was always Handil’s great vibrar that spoke first, setting the deep rhythm of the call. Colin Stonetooth squinted against the high sun, and his eyes sought the monolith of the First Sentinel. There, at the top of that mighty spire, was where Handil would be. Though he could not see him there, Colin Stonetooth envisioned his first son – strong and sturdy, his kilt rippling around his knees, his dark hair and trimmed beard giving him a feral look as he slung the great, iron-bound drum that was of his own crafting. The vibrar, designed and built by Handil, was like no other drum when it struck the first thunders of the Call to Balladine.

Thinking of his eldest son, Colin Stonetooth felt the play of emotions that Handil always aroused in him. Though still young, Handil had the breadth of chest of a seasoned delver, shoulders like the knotted boles of mountain pines, and powerful hands on arms that rippled with strength.

At three inches over five feet, Handil was not as tall as Willen Ironmaul, Thorin’s captain of guards, but nearly so, and his bearing was as imposing as his father’s had ever been – erect and sturdy, powerfully muscled, with the natural grace of a born rock-climber. His features were strong, chiseled planes in a wide face framed by a mane of dark hair and back-swept whiskers, trimmed short in the Calnar fashion. Solemn, thoughtful gray eyes set wide apart above high cheekbones seemed always to see the world and all within it as objects of curiosity.

Handil resembled his father, they said, and Colin Stonetooth was pleased at the comparison, though he could not see it himself.

Of all his sons, Colin Stonetooth thought, Handil was the one best equipped to become chief among the Calnar. A natural leader – even in his early youth, Handil had always chosen his own course and others had always followed – the young dwarf had an inborn skill with tools of any kind and a cool, thoughtful manner in all that he did.

Yet Handil had never displayed the slightest interest in chiefdom. He seemed devoid of leadership ambition, preferring instead his crafts, his tinkering and inventing, and – above all – the music of the drums.

Since his early youth, Handil had been called Handil the Drum by all who knew him, and he seemed perfectly content with the name.

Colin Stonetooth gazed upward, hearing the drum-talk grow in volume and complexity as more and more drums joined in – the harvest song of the Calnar, rumbling and rippling among the peaks. Its rising echoes drifted back to add texture to the call. The Call to Balladine it was, reaching out beyond the peaks and the slopes, out toward the human realms of Golash and Chandera. The people there would hear the song, and they would pack their goods and come. Within a week they would be arriving, and their encampments would fill the valleys below Thorin. It was the custom of the Calnar, the midsummer Balladine. And it had become the custom of their human neighbors, as well.

It would be a time of trading, of exchanging news and views, of wrangling over borders and trading prisoners, of settling disputes and renewing pacts; a time of feasts and contests, or bargaining and barter; the time when humans of two nations came to Thorin to trade for the wares of dwarven foundries and forges and to listen in awe to the deep, haunting rhythms of dwarven mountain music. It was the Balladine, and the drums were the call.

Colin looked forward to it, as he always did. It was diverting, once a year, to see the valleys below Thorin thronging with the frantic, always impatient crowds of human visitors. It was interesting to visit their pavilions, to see what works the strange, tall creatures had produced since the summer before. Colin would not bargain with their weavers and grain traders, their spice merchants and wood builders. He would leave business to Cullom Hammerstand and his barterers. But there would be occasions to trade tales with Garr Lanfel and Bram Talien, and maybe to set out good dwarven ale for that old scoundrel Riffin Two-Tree, and see who could drink whom under the table.

Regular association with humans, Colin felt, could drive a reasonable person to insanity. But once a year, it was pleasant to visit with those who had become friends.

Colin Stonetooth nodded to himself, then looked again toward the First Sentinel as the drums increased their volume. Handil might have no interest in governing, but the lad could make the mountains sing when he decided to.

Handil the Drum! Colin Stonetooth shook his head, frowning. Among the Calnar, no person could tell another person what he must become, but there were times when the old chief wished that he might yet take Handil by the shoulders – as he had when the youth was younger – and shake some higher ambition into that mysterious mind of his.

Still, there was plenty of time. Though his mane and beard were streaked with frost, Colin Stonetooth was yet a mighty dwarf, his mind clear, and his sturdy body as strong as any ox. There was no hurry about succession.

Handil would be married soon, to Jinna Rockreave, and marriage might change his ways.

“It comes of associating with humans,” he muttered to himself. “Sometimes I feel as impatient as those short-lived creatures.” In his own good time, Handil would decide what he would be. And if not Handil, then there were others of the chief’s blood who might yet prove themselves. There was Tolon, who might yet outgrow his dark moods. And Cale, if ever he could clip the wings of that elfish spirit of his and plant his feet on the mountain stone where they belonged.

Cale Greeneye, Colin thought, and frowned. Cale Cloudwalker! What names my sons acquire!

Future chieftains? The thought troubled him. A chieftain must be rooted in the clan, for the chieftain is the clan. But Cale Greeneye had roots only in his dreams of far places.

Tolon troubled Colin even more. Brooding and intuitive, Tolon kept his own counsel, living always within himself so that it was hard to tell what course he was likely to take. But it was clear that Tolon had no liking for outsiders. In particular, he deeply distrusted all humans, though many of their human neighbors had become valued friends to Colin.

Thorin relied upon trade, and therefore upon friendly dealings with neighboring realms. But how friendly would those relationships someday be if Tolon Farsight were chieftain of the Calnar? A chieftain might make small mistakes, but he must never make big ones – the kind of mistakes that would bring disaster upon his people. To Tolon, his father’s willingness to accept outsiders was a dangerous thing. But to Colin, Tolon’s distrust of humans was ominous. Such distrust could result in a cessation of trade, and trade was essential.

No, the successor ought to be Handil. Handil the Drum.

Irritated with himself for daydreaming, Colin Stonetooth straightened in his saddle, flicked the reins of his great horse, and headed downslope at a trot to inspect the lower fields, miles away. Behind him, the Ten wheeled in perfect formation to follow. In their bright steel and rich-hued leathers, they fairly glistened in the high sunlight, and bore their bannered lances proudly. Each was mounted on his own tall, gold-and-white horse, each animal a perfect match for their chieftain’s own mount.

*

High above, on the outward wall of Thorin Keep, Tolon Farsight – who was often called Tolon the Muse – stood on a shadowed balcony and watched his father and the ten selectmen of his honor guard as they pranced their big horses down the long incline toward the second ring of fields. Beyond and below, the realm of Thorin spread in majestic beauty, stepping away to the shadowed valleys of the Hammersong and Bone rivers, then rising beyond toward the spike-crested Suncradles, westernmost peaks of the Khalkist range.

From the Sentinels above, but seeming now to come from everywhere, the drumcall rhythms grew and intertwined until it seemed that the very mountains throbbed to the deep, haunting music. Forty-one times – forty-one summers – Tolon had heard the Call to Balladine. Like the seasons and the landscapes of Thorin, like the comfortable delvings within the mountain’s heart, the drumcall was part of his life and had always been so. Never twice the same, yet as unchanging as the mountain crags themselves, the Call to Balladine was as familiar to him as the sun over the peaks. Yet now he sensed a new tone – not in the rhythms themselves, but somehow in their echoes or the way they carried on the air. Something more sensed than heard, it had a dark, prophetic undertone to Tolon’s ears. A deep frown creased his dark brow.

All his life, at each midsummer, Tolon Farsight had listened to the Call and observed the gathering of realms which followed it. At Balladine, the humans came – humans from Golash and Chandera, and often others, as well. Nomadic tribes from the plains beyond the Suncradles came sometimes, drawn by the drums and by legends of the glory of Thorin … and often, Tolon knew, drawn by their envy of the wealth of the dwarves. But for whatever reasons, each summer they came, and sometimes others came as well. Ogres from the high passes would lurk beyond the Sentinels, listening to the drums. Even elves had come, on occasion, though not in recent years because of the dragon wars. It was the nature of the Balladine. No two times were exactly alike, but never did it really change. Often at the height of Balladine the visitors in their encampments would outnumber the dwarves of Thorin by ten to one. Often, at the contests and the trading stalls, there was strenuous argument. Sometimes there were incidents – a minor riot, a fight over some trinket or over how a contest was won. There was the inevitable thievery, the usual squabbles, the occasional knifing or angry duel.

But these were just part of Balladine. They were the predictable results of too many people, of different persuasions and different races, intermingling freely. Seldom were the consequences serious, and the human chiefs of Golash and Chandera seemed as determined as was Colin Stonetooth himself that nothing irreparable harm the tradition of the summer fair. They were human, of course, and hardly to be trusted, but they seemed to be in concert with the dwarves.

Yet, now … Tolon shivered slightly and pulled his woven suede robe – human-made, by some weaver in Golash – tighter around his broad shoulders. He turned, strode to the alcove behind the balcony, and pushed open the iron-framed door set in the stone arch. He hesitated for an instant while his eyes adjusted from daylight to fireglow, then called, “Tera! Are you here?”

Soft, padding footsteps sounded, somewhere beyond the outer room, and an intricate tapestry parted on the far wall. The person who stepped through, a young dwarf woman, had the same dark, swept-back mane and wide-set eyes as all of her brothers, but was otherwise as unlike any of them as they were unlike one another. As with most females of her race, she was shorter by several inches than the males in her family, standing barely over four feet in height. But where her father and brothers had wide, strong-boned faces with high cheekbones and level eyes, Tera Sharn’s features were like their mother’s – softly tapering cheeks, a small, slightly buck-toothed mouth above a stubborn chin, and wide, almost-slanted eyes beneath arching brows … eyes that missed very little and that could look very wise when glimpsed unaware.

By any standard, Tera Sharn – only daughter of Colin Stonetooth, chieftain of the Calnar of Thorin – was a strikingly beautiful dwarven maiden, and in recent seasons there had been no shortage of highborn young dwarves coming to call. Of late, it was unusual to find her without Willen Ironmaul or Jerem Longslate or some other strapping suitor lurking nearby.

She was alone now, though, and she paused, gazing at Tolon. Something in his tone had sounded worried … almost ominous.

Tolon Farsight nodded at his sister and gestured. “Tera, come to the balcony. Come and listen.”

Curious, she followed him through the open door, which closed behind them on weighted hinges. Sunlight had found the stone parapet of the balcony and reflected on the glittering pattern of metallic particles in its polished surface. Tera shaded her eyes, looking around.

“Listen,” Tolon said. “Tell me what you hear.”

She listened, then shrugged. “I hear the drums,” she told him. “The drums of Balladine.” She looked around. “Is there something more?”

“Do the drums sound strange to you?” He frowned, gazing past her, concentrating on the muted, complex thunders of the dwarven music.

Again she listened. “They sound strong. Strong and sure. I recognize the voice of Handil’s drum among them … and others, too. They speak well this year.” Again she glanced at her brother. “What is it, Tolon? Do you hear something that I don’t?”

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “I may have imagined it.”

“What did you imagine, then?”

“It sounded as though … I don’t know, maybe it was just odd echoes. But for a moment it sounded … well, as though the drums were saying good-bye.”

*

Haunting and powerful, seeming to build upon itself minute by minute, the call of the drums echoed outward across Thorin, reaching for the realms beyond. A drum … a dozen drums … a hundred drums, one by one, by twos and fives, joined the mighty voice of the Call to Balladine. As the high sun reached its zenith, it seemed the very mountains absorbed the intricate, commanding rhythms and throbbed with them. Today was the first call. They would call again tomorrow, and the day after that, and each day until the harvest reached the middle ledges. Then would begin the great fair of the Calnar, the time of Balladine.

High above Thorin Keep, on the platformed cap of the First Sentinel, Handil the Drum leaned into his music, corded shoulders rippling in the sunlight as his mallet beat a steady rhythm for all the rest to weave their beats around. Slung from his shoulder, cradled under his left arm, the mighty vibrar boomed and throbbed its invitation. Its voice at each stroke of the mallet rolled like thunder and seemed to make the very mountains dance.

Beyond him, where trumpeters and lookouts manned the parapets, Cale Greeneye – youngest of the brothers – leaned casually on a narrow railing above dizzy heights and gazed off into the mountain distances, letting the music of the drums pulse in his blood while he dreamed of faraway places.

In misted distance, beyond the valleys of the Bone and Hammersong rivers, beyond the far, rising slopes, clouds drifted among the peaks of the Suncradles. As he often did, Cale Greeneye – called by many Cale Cloudwalker – fantasized that he might harness such a cloud and stand upon it, feel it rise and flow beneath his feet, carrying him off across strange, distant lands to places he had never seen and could not even imagine.

Nearby, a trumpeter glanced around, gazed at the chieftain’s youngest son for a moment, then nudged a lookout. “The Cloudwalker is off again,” he whispered. “Strangest thing I ever heard of. Why in Krynn would a person ever want to travel?”

“Not the only strange thing today.” The lookout frowned. He pointed westward, into the hazed distance.

“What do you see out there, Misal?”

The trumpeter squinted, shading his eyes, then spread his hands. “Nothing. Why?”

“That’s just it,” the lookout said. “The patrol from Farfield was due this morning with the border reports. I’ve never known them to be late, but as far as I can see – and on a day like this that’s at least twenty miles – there isn’t a sign of them.”

Cale Greeneye glanced around, overhearing the words. It was odd. Sledge Two-Fires was a seasoned scout and not one to be late finishing a patrol circuit. And Cale had friends among the perimeter guards. His eyes lighted. Maybe it would be a good idea, he thought, if someone went to look for them.

Chapter 3

GRAYFEN EMBER-EYE

In a deep, steep-walled canyon where a narrow trail cut through the crest of a ridge, rays of the midday sun smote the canyon floor and glinted on the burnished armor, rich leathers, and spattered blood of those who lay there, tumbled and silent in death. Fourteen in all, they lay where they had fallen. Some had been dead for hours, their pooled blood darkening as it dried. But here and there among them were splashes of bright red – fresh blood still steaming in the cold air.

Men walked among them, crouching and stooping as they picked up weapons, pausing to loot the bodies that had not yet been robbed. Nearby, just beyond the trail’s crest, a fire had been built, and other men gathered around it to warm themselves.

“Should have been over in minutes,” a man grumbled, tying fabric around a bleeding gash in his arm. “There were only fourteen of them, and our arrows took down nine before they knew we were here. Five left, and it took us all night to finish them!”

“Stubborn as dwarves, like they say,” another muttered, stuffing steel coins into his pouch. “The little vermin fight like demons.” He glanced around. “Anybody count our losses yet?”

“Seventeen dead,” someone told him. “Few more won’t last the day. Don’t know how many wounded. Twenty or thirty, maybe. It was a mistake, letting the dinks get to the slopes. For that matter, it was a mistake charging down on them after the first volleys. We should have stayed in cover, held a defense, and finished them from a distance.”

“Sure,” the first man growled. “And maybe have one or two of them get clear? Maybe slip away to warn the whole kingdom about us? Lot of good our ambush would have done, then. Use your head, Calik! In this world you use it or lose it.”

“One of the horses did get away, Grak,” a man said. “The one out in front when we attacked. I put an arrow into its saddle but missed the next shot. It was gone before anybody could catch it.”

“As long as its rider didn’t go with it.” Grak shrugged, scowling. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell Grayfen that we let a dwarf slip through.”

“No dwarves,” Calik assured him. “I counted them myself. Counting the first one – the scout – we killed fifteen stinking dwarves and fourteen of those big horses. Wouldn’t have minded keeping one of those beasts, though. Wouldn’t I like to have a horse like that!”

Grak gazed at him, leering. “The day you can ride a dwarf’s horse, Calik, will be the day snails learn to fly.” He turned, looking around. “Do you hear that?”

Several of them raised their heads, scowling. “I hear something,” one said. “Like thunder, a long way off. What is that?”

As they listened, the sound seemed to grow, not so much in volume as in clarity. It was a continuous, rolling throb that seemed to have a texture of its own. It thrummed in the high sunlight and echoed weirdly off the chasm walls.

“It’s the drums,” Grak decided. “The dinks and their drums, like Grayfen told us. That fair of theirs, it’s beginning.”

Calik stood with his face upturned, his eyes wide. “I never in my life heard anything like that,” he muttered. “It almost sounds like they’re singing. How can drums sing?”

Grak shook his head, as though to rid himself of the haunting, distant sounds. “It doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Except it means we have to hurry. Grayfen wants us at the main camp. Clear up here, and let’s move.”

“Some of our wounded aren’t going to make it a mile, the shape they’re in.”

“Things are tough all over,” Grak snapped. “Pack up! Any who can’t keep up, cut their throats and leave them.”

*

Grayfen was not pleased with his ambushers. He stalked among them, his wolfskin cape swaying and flowing behind him, and they cringed as his eyes pinned them one by one – eyes as cold and bright as the rubies they resembled.

“Forty-two men lost?” he hissed. “You paid forty-two lives for a puny patrol of fifteen dinks?”

“They fought,” Grak said, then recoiled as Grayfen turned and speared him with those ruby eyes – eyes like no eyes he had ever seen in a human face. “I mean —” he swallowed and added lamely “— I mean, they surprised us, sir. Some of them got through to us, and … and they fought like … like demons. And those slings of theirs … and their steel blades …” He shook his head, gesturing at the pile of weapons and armor on the ground nearby, salvaged from the bodies of the dwarf patrol.

“They fought,” Grayfen snarled, his voice like a snake’s hiss. “Of course they fought, idiot! Whatever else they are, the dinks are fighters! I may just send you” — he looked from one to another of them — “I may send all of you into Thorin with the first assault. You think you’ve seen the little misers fight, maybe you should see what they do when they’re defending their homes!”

“Yes, sir,” Grak muttered, keeping his eyes downward. “Only …”

“Not me,” a man behind him whispered. “By the moons, I won’t go in there with the first wave! I’m not that kind of fool.”

Grak turned, wanting to silence the man, but it was too late. Grayfen had heard. Wolf-hide cape flaring, he straightened to his full height, seeming to tower above even the tall Grak. The ruby eyes glowed with an evil light from beneath arched brows the color of his silvery mane. He raised an imperious finger, pointing past Grak. “You!” he hissed. “Who are you?”

The man didn’t answer. Paling, he started to turn away, then froze in place as Grayfen commanded, “Hold!”

Grayfen glanced at Grak. “That man,” he said, still pointing. “Tell me his name.”

“Sir, that’s only Porge. He meant no disre —”

“Enough!” Grayfen cut him off. “Porge. Face me, Porge.”

Ashen-faced, Porge turned to face Grayfen. Cold sweat formed on his brow as the ruby eyes bored into him. The stiff finger was still extended, pointing at him.

“What kind of fool are you, you wonder?” Grayfen’s voice turned silky. “The kind who questions my command, it seems. A shame, Porge. You might have survived assault on Thorin … if you had held your tongue.”

Beneath the constant throbbing of the distant drums, another sound grew. As though the air were charged with lightning, a sizzling, crackling sputter emerged among them. Grayfen’s pointing finger and ruby eyes didn’t waver, but, as the sound grew, a slow, smoky light seemed to extend from the finger, a lazy beam that approached Porge languidly, then sprang at him and wrapped itself around his throat. Porge gagged, struggling to breathe. His hands clawed at the constriction on his throat, but there was nothing there to grip … only the smoky band of dull light. Porge gasped one last time, and his breathing stopped. His eyes bulged, his mouth gaped, and he seemed to hang from the light as his legs went limp.

For a long moment, Grayfen held him there, letting all the others see. Then he snapped his fingers, and a louder snap echoed it, the crack of Porge’s neck breaking. Grayfen lowered his hand, and the body sprawled on the ground like a tattered doll.

“Get rid of that,” Grayfen said contemptuously. He turned to Grak. “I accept that the dinks surprised you,” he said. “You had not faced them before. Now you have. Remember what you’ve learned. Rest your men now. The drums are speaking. Tomorrow we move into Golash. From there, we go to Thorin.”

Men were lifting Porge’s body to carry him away. Grayfen glanced at them, then at the pile of dwarven armament nearby. “Get rid of those, too,” he said. “We don’t want to be seen with dink steels. They would be recognized.”

Grak cleared his throat and nodded, glancing down at the fine dwarven sword hanging at his hip. It was of Thorin steel, exquisitely burnished, point-heavy in the dwarven fashion but razor-edged and beautiful. It was the kind of sword a man might spend a lifetime acquiring, a sword worth a small fortune anywhere else in the world.

As though reading his mind, Grayfen said, “The dinks have fine wares, Grak. Far better than they deserve. But we will change that. The treasures of Thorin will buy a thousand such swords. The treasures of Thorin …” As he spoke, Grayfen’s ruby eyes went distant. It seemed to Grak that the magic-man was speaking not to him at all, but only to himself. “The dinks!” The soft voice became a hiss of purest hatred. “The scheming, selfish, arrogant dinks! We shall see soon enough who deserves the treasures those little misers hide in that dwarf-lair of theirs.”

Grak was a callous and brutal man, but something in the mage’s words and in his tone made the raider’s flesh creep. Never in a long, cruel life had he heard such pure, malevolent hatred in a voice as when Grayfen spoke the name he had given the dwarves. “Dinks!”

Others beyond Grak had heard it, too. When Grayfen was gone, striding toward the main encampment of raiders in the hidden cove above the Bone River, some of the men gathered around their captain.

“What … what do you suppose made him that way?” Calik whispered, awed.

“I don’t know.” Grak shook his head. “He hates the dwarves.”

“So? Who doesn’t? Misers and thieves … why should they have all the best things?”

“He hates them more than anyone.” Grak shook his head again. “Something happened, between him and them. I don’t know what it was, but I think it was at the same time that he gained his magic.”

“I noticed that you didn’t tell him about the dwarven horse that got away.”

“I told enough.” Grak shrugged. “You saw what happened to Porge. Would you want to see Grayfen really angry?”

*

The camp of the intruders was large, sprawled across the bottom of a huge, washed-out cove above the east bank of the Bone River. It was separated by broken lands and by a rugged, seldom-traveled rock crest from the tribal lands of Golash, south of Thorin’s outer fields. A hidden place, it held little comfort for the hundreds of humans assembled there.

And now, in the evening when the distant drums of Thorin could be heard like deep, chanting voices in the still mountain air, the camp was a dark, cold place. No fires were lit, nor would be again. That was Grayfen’s command. Smoke from cooking fires the morning before had almost led to discovery. It was the smoke that the dwarf scout had seen from atop Crevice Pass that had sent him hurrying back toward his patrol to report. It was because he had seen it that the patrol of dwarves had been ambushed and massacred. The intruders had orders from Grayfen not to let word of the encampment reach Thorin. Such an encampment would be investigated by Calnar soldiers, and the mage’s plan would be foiled before it began.

In the gathering darkness of the cove, Grayfen made his way through the sprawling camp, unseen except by those he wished to see him. The sun was gone from the sky, and the two visible moons had yet to climb above the towering, saber-tooth peaks of the Khalkists. Only the stars in an indigo sky gave light now, and it was not a light to penetrate the shadows of the cove.

Passing among the groups and clusters of his collected people, Grayfen was only a shadow among shadows – to them. But he could see them plainly, and as he made his way toward his private quarters – a circular, slab-stone hut with a low, tapering roof, surrounded by a perimeter that none but he could cross – he studied them, assessing their readiness. Six hundred fighting men he had assembled, and each of them had recruited others. Now there were thousands.

Their weapons and equipment were a motley mix of the trappings of every nomadic culture he had encountered in two years of recruiting beyond the mountain realms. There were dour Cobar among them, huddled in their own tight groups, their woven garments bristling with quilled bolts for their crossbows and the heavy hand-darts they favored. There were burly marauders from the Baruk tribes, Sandrunners from the northern plains, hill-dwelling Flock-raiders, evil-tempered Sackmen and many who fit no particular group. There were hard-bitten fugitives from the agrarian lands to the east, refugees from the fringes of the Silvanesti forests driven out by elves – and, some said, by a marauding dragon – and a hundred kinds of wandering mercenaries willing to fight anyone’s battles for a share of the spoils.

Two things bound them all together as a single force – the promise of riches when Thorin was taken and their fear of Grayfen. In recruiting, the mage had touched each of them with burning fingers and stared into their eyes with those featureless ruby orbs that were his eyes. And having touched them, he had the power to kill any one of them – anywhere – at any time he chose.

This, then, was the force that Grayfen the Mage, whom some called Ember-Eye, had amassed for his assault on Thorin. These, and his agents already at work among the people of Golash and Chandera. He was satisfied. The Balladine was beginning. The dwarves – the dinks – would be off guard and vulnerable. It would be the last Balladine, he told himself, and the end of the Calnar of Thorin.

Thorin would be his, and every dwarf within his reach would pay painfully and finally for the pain that lived within him each day of his life.

Grayfen made a sign with his hands, strode across the forbidden perimeter around his hut, and stepped inside, into a darkness that was not dark to him. He saw clearly in the gloom, as brightly as he saw everything – in brilliant, burning shades of red. Closing the portal behind him, he went to a plain, wooden pedestal in the center of the room and knelt before it.

With a sigh, using the thumb and first finger of each hand, he removed his eyes, easily plucking them from their sockets. Immediately, the fiery pain in his head subsided, and he rested there for a moment, letting the familiar relief of it wash over him.

With a muttered incantation, he placed the two ruby spheres on the pedestal, stood, and shuffled to his sleeping cot – a blind man groping in darkness. He found his cot and lay down upon it, wishing for real sleep … wishing that, for a few hours, he could be as blind as the empty sockets beneath his brows.

He was blind, but still he saw – as brightly and relentlessly as always. He saw the ceiling of the hut above the pedestal. He saw what the ruby orbs saw – always that, and never less. They lay in gloom, glowing faintly, staring at the ceiling, and the first sight in his mind was that ceiling. The second sight, captured within the orbs and always present, was of a ragged, bleeding dwarf with a slender, double-tined javelin in its hand – like a fishing spear, except that it hummed to itself and glowed with a crimson luster. As always, in his mind, Grayfen saw the image of that wounded dwarf – and as he saw it, it hurled its glowing javelin at his face.

Once, then, Grayfen had been truly blind … before the double-pointed spear that took his eyes gave him new ones and the power that went with them. Once, years ago and very far away, in a place called Kal-Thax, Grayfen had known the darkness. It was a dwarf who had blinded him. Now it would be dwarves who paid the price.

*

Kalil the herdsman had spent the day driving his flock up from the meadows above the Hammersong, and as the Suncradles swallowed the light of full day, he chased the last ewe into the pen and closed the gate. Though his legs ached from the day’s work, Kalil was pleased. The flock had grazed well on the rich meadows. They were fat and frisky, and their wool was prime.

Far up the mountains, the drums had begun their call. Balladine was at hand. Tomorrow, Kalil would select the best animals from his herd and take them to the village, to join the trek from Golash to Thorin. Trading should be good this year; he knew the Calnar needed wool and mutton. Even after paying his trade-share to Garr Lanfel, Prince of Golash, Kalil expected to have a purse bulging with dwarven coin – and maybe a bit of dwarven steel as well.

Securing his gate, Kalil turned toward his herdsman’s shack and was nearly there before he looked up and stopped, startled at what he saw. In front of his house stood a tall, gold-and-white horse, head-down and streaked with sweat. It was clearly a dwarven horse – no one but the dwarves bred and used the huge, white-maned Calnar horses. It wore a saddle of dwarven design, richly studded with steel and silver, and its loose reins dangled from its headstall.

Quickly, Kalil glanced about, his hackles rising, half expecting to see a Calnar soldier nearby. Like most of the humans of the Khalkist realms, Kalil accepted the dwarves of Calnar. He looked forward to trading with them, and he didn’t mind mingling with them – on their lands – during the Balladine. But, like most humans, his regard for the Calnar was tempered by a deep-seated dislike born as much of envy as of the difference in their appearance from his own.

The dwarves were rich. He had never encountered a dwarf who wasn’t rich. The dwarves made steel, and they used steel, and there was – it seemed to Kalil – a certain arrogance in the casual way the short, stubby creatures displayed their wealth. It made him feel very poor by comparison.

They were ugly little creatures, to Kalil’s human perception, and they were arrogant and obviously selfish, since they seemed always to be wealthier than anyone else. The idea of a dwarf being here – at his home – irritated him as much as it startled him.

But there was no dwarf around. There was only the huge, tired horse standing in Kalil’s dooryard, and he approached it cautiously. “Ho!” he said when it turned its great head to look at him with intelligent eyes. “Ho, stay! Easy now, good horse … stay.”

When it neither bared its teeth nor backed away, Kalil picked up its reins and rubbed its muzzle with his hand. “Good horse,” he crooned, noticing that the bit in its mouth and the studding on its headstall were of fine silver. He looked further. From withers to flanks hung a skirt of delicately worked mesh, with a fine saddle atop. Kalil’s mouth dropped open. The saddle was smeared with dried blood, and the shaft of an arrow jutted upward from its pommel.

For a moment, Kalil had considered trying to return the horse to the dwarves of Thorin for the rich reward they undoubtedly would pay for a strayed animal. But now he changed his mind. To take a dwarven horse to the dwarves, its saddle covered with blood and a human-made arrow embedded there, would be worse than foolish. It would likely be the last thing he ever did.

He decided he wanted nothing to do with this horse. Still, its trappings were of the finest dwarven craft. The steel parts alone were worth a small fortune in human realms.

Glancing around furtively, Kalil set about relieving the horse of its burdens. Saddle, bridle, headstall, and mail skirt he removed, along with the pack behind the saddle and the saddle blanket, which was of fine, woven suede. He carried his prizes to his hay shed and hid them there. Tomorrow he would bury them – or most of them – to be recovered later.

When he came out, the horse was still standing beside his house, nibbling at his thatch roof. “Here!” he snapped. “Leave that alone!”

The horse backed away, staring at him, and then, as though it had tolerated all the human company it cared to, it turned and trotted away, up the hill.

“Good!” Kalil breathed. “Good riddance. I don’t need Calnar horses here. Life is trouble enough, without dwarf trouble.”

Chapter 4

PORTENT OF THE SWORD

The great hall called Grand Gather was the heart of Thorin Keep. Here, where ancient ogres had squared out a huge cavern for their deepest lair, the delving Calnar had begun the remodeling and expansion from which Thorin grew. Gone was the blocky, monotonous architecture of the ogres. The only remaining trace of ogre origins was the sheer size of the vast chamber.

Grand Gather had been reshaped by the dwarves into a huge amphitheater with rings of steps rising from an arena floor. It was literally the heart of Thorin, because it was from here that all the later delvings of the city within the mountain had gone forth – a busy, ever-growing sprawl of levels and ways, warrens and roads, shops and stalls, foundries, factories, smithies, and sprawling residential areas – an entire city within a mountain. Select stone removed from the delvings had gone to construct the twenty-story west wall overlooking the terraces – the only exterior wall in the entire city.

Grand Gather was enormous. Its rising rings of steps, serving as seats for assemblies, could accommodate many thousands. But now there were only a few dozen Calnar in the great chamber. High sunlight, shafting in through the great quartz lenses of sun-tunnels in the vaulted ceiling a hundred feet above, made the day within Thorin as bright as the mountain morning above the Khalkist crags. Great ranks of silvered-glass mirrors directed the light, in Grand Gather as elsewhere, so that no part of Thorin was ever dark, except at night.

When Colin Stonetooth entered Grand Gather, striding down the steps on powerful, stubby legs, some of those waiting below stood, and a few saluted. Others didn’t. As chieftain of the Calnar, Colin Stonetooth had little use for ceremony, unless it served a practical purpose. Today there were no visiting delegations to impress, no games or entertainments to applaud. Nothing was scheduled here today, and the message from the captain of guards, requesting the chieftain’s presence here, had been terse and without explanation.

Colin entered through the west passage, the Ten following him as they always did. They had all been out on the terraces and still wore their riding gear. The Grand Council table, a seven-sided table of polished oak wood, twelve feet across, had been placed in the center of the arena with benches around it. The five members of the Council of Wardens waited there, along with several others. Colin was surprised that all four of his children were present, as well as the delvemaster, Wight Anvil’s-Cap, and the marshal of the keep, Coke Rockrend. Beyond the table, big Willen Ironmaul, captain of guards, waited with a cluster of his warriors. They formed a tight ring, some facing inward, and Colin squinted, trying to see who – or what – they were guarding.

At the chieftain’s flank, Jerem Longslate, First of the Ten, muttered, “Something’s afoot, Sire. Coke Rockrend never meets with the council.”

“Neither does Wight Anvil’s-Cap,” Colin pointed out. He raised a hand casually, and the Ten spread out, hurrying to stations around the arena where they could watch the entrances and their chieftain’s back. Never in memory had the Ten been called upon to defend the life of the chieftain of the Calnar, but never did a moment pass when they were not ready to, if needed.

Colin reached the arena gate and paused there, looking from one to another of those waiting around the great table. There were wardens at five of its seven sides. The sixth was his, and it was an old mystery why there was a seventh.

The table had been crafted by a team of master carpenters more than a century ago, but even then the full council – including the chieftain – had only been six. Old Mistral Thrax, who – some said – was more than three hundred years of age, held that the seventh side was in honor of the legendary Kitlin Fishtaker, the dwarf who had stood in the path of chaos on the day when magic was born. But then, Mistral Thrax was full of stories. Only children believed the legend of Kitlin Fishtaker. What dwarf would wander the world, suffering from wounds that never healed, and carry with him an enchanted two-tined fishing spear?

What dwarf would use magic? The very idea was repugnant. Still, Mistral Thrax insisted that there was a realm called Kal-Thax, somewhere to the west, and that Kitlin Fishtaker had lived there.

Colin Stonetooth stepped into the arena and strode to the table. He looked from one to another of his wardens, then held the gaze of Frost Steelbit, chief of wardens. “Well?” he said.

Frost shrugged and turned, indicating the captain of guards, who was approaching the table.

Willen Ironmaul was young for his responsibilities but had proven himself many times over. At five feet, four inches in height, he was one of the tallest dwarves in Thorin and had the powerful build of an athlete. With a stubborn mane of thick, dark hair and a beard that seemed to defy trimming, his appearance belied the quiet wisdom of his level gray eyes.

As he approached, those eyes flicked toward Tera Sharn – as they always did when she was present – then returned to Colin Stonetooth. “Sire.” He made the slightest of bows, then squared his shoulders. “I called for this meeting. You were in the fields, and I felt this matter could not wait. I hope you will approve, when you have heard the reason.”

For a moment, Colin was taken aback. He had not known who summoned him, but would have assumed that it was a member of the council. For a guard captain to take such a step was almost unheard of. Still, Willen Ironmaul had earned great respect in Thorin, even among its leaders. Sometimes Colin wished that the big captain’s cool, direct manner of taking charge when necessary might rub off on his own sons. “You must feel there is good reason, Willen.” Colin nodded. “Proceed.”

“Garr Lanfel, the prince of Golash, has sent us a puzzle, sire. The puzzle is here.” Willen turned toward his clustered guards and signaled. The guards stepped aside to reveal a huddled figure in a cloak, sitting on a bench.

“Stand up!” one of the guards whispered, loudly enough for all to hear. At the command, the cloaked one stood. Colin Stonetooth hissed in amazement. It was a man – a human man. Standing, he towered head and shoulders above the armed dwarves flanking him.

Colin Stonetooth scowled at the hooded figure. Only rarely were humans admitted to the keep, and then only on the chieftain’s orders. For Willen Ironmaul to have taken this upon himself, there must be a very good reason indeed, the chieftain thought.

“Show him,” Willen ordered. The guards flanking the man grasped his cloak and pulled it from him. The man’s eyes glared at the dwarves with unconcealed hatred, but he made no sound. His hands and arms were bound with stout cord, and a gag covered his mouth.

“Sire,” Willen Ironmaul said, pointing, “this man was delivered to our guards by men from Golash, by order of Prince Garr Lanfel. He was bound as he is now, and we left him so and brought him here in secret.” Willen stooped, picked up a long parcel wrapped in sheepskin, and laid it on the table before Colin. “Prince Garr Lanfel instructed his men to say that this man is not of Golash. He is a stranger there, one of many who have arrived in recent days. And he was carrying this.” With a sweep of his powerful arm, the big dwarf pulled aside the sheepskin. Within it lay a sword, and Colin Stonetooth’s eyes narrowed as he looked at it. It was no ordinary sword, and certainly not a sword that any human should have had. It was virtually a duplicate of the blade that Willen Ironmaul carried at his back. It was of finest Thorin steel, with the distinctive floral hilt and pommel of those blades made in the fifth-level smithies, for exclusive issue to Thorin’s elite guards. No such sword had ever been consigned to anyone else.

Colin lifted the blade, studied it carefully, and tasted it. Though wiped clean, its burnished steel still carried traces that were clear to the keen metal-sense of a dwarf.

The chieftain’s eyes narrowed still more, and Willen Ironmaul nodded. “Aye, Sire,” he said. “The sword has tasted blood recently. And not just human blood. There is Calnar blood there, too – on the hilt, guard, and pommel.”

Colin Stonetooth turned, his gaze cold as he studied the visible features of the gagged human. Aside he asked, “Your border patrol, Willen? Has there been word?”

“No, Sire. Nothing.”

“There is the horse,” Handil Coldblade reminded them, stepping forth. As wide and sturdy as Colin himself, “the Drum” at this moment was a fierce, younger version of his father. “One of ours, Father. It was found wandering in the lower fields, lathered and stripped of its gear. Saman the Hostler believes it is Sledge Two-Fires’ mount, called Piquin.”

“Sledge led the missing patrol.” Willen Ironmaul added.

At the council table, Cullom Hammerstand, warden of trade, pulled a rolled scroll from his belt and placed it on the oaken surface. “Heed the words of the human prince, Garr Lanfel, Sire. He said this man is not of Golash, but is one of many strangers recently come. Garr Lanfel is an honorable man, Sire … for a human. His warning bears out these reports of the past several weeks. Large bands of humans have been converging, both on Golash and on Chandera. They come quietly and blend with the humans there.”

“Many people are adrift these days,” Talam Bendiron noted. As always, the tap warden was cautious about reaching conclusions.

“Many are adrift,” Cullom Hammerstand agreed, “but not this many.” He unrolled the scroll, squinting at it. “By our agents’ estimates, Sire, these ‘little bands’ converging on the neighboring realms now total several thousand human males, all of them well-armed, and all arriving just in time for the fair of Balladine. Also, in Golash they say the strangers speak to all who will listen, spreading vicious lies about dwarves. They seem to be doing all they can to spread a hatred of the Calnar. And a name is used often among the strangers. The name is Grayfen. Our agents suspect he may be a wizard of some sort.”

Colin shuddered slightly, as did most dwarves at the mention of sorcery. Magic existed, but it was considered an abomination. “Only in Golash?” he asked. “What of Chandera?”

The trade warden ran a finger down his scroll, read farther, then looked up. “Bram Talien of Chandera reports strangers, as well, Sire. Though not so many.”

“All of this, and this” — Willen Ironmaul indicated the sword at Colin’s hand — “are why I felt we should meet here today.”

“I agree with Willen, Father,” Handil said. “Balladine is at hand.”

“And I,” Tolon added. “I fear that evil approaches.”

“Evil.” Colin repeated the word. He waved toward the human prisoner. “Release his bonds. Let’s hear what he can tell us.”

Strong hands removed the cords and the gag. The man rubbed his hands, glaring at them.

“Do you speak our language, human?” Colin Stonetooth asked.

“I speak my language,” the man growled. “But not to dinks.”

“To what?”

“Dinks. Filthy dwarves.”

One of the guards shook his head, amused that this disheveled human, who smelled as though he had never in his life had a bath, should call dwarves filthy.

“You have heard what has been said, human.” Colin stood, facing the man. “What is your name, and how do you come to have this sword in your possession?”

“My name is Calik,” the man snapped. “And what I have is my own business.”

“What happened to the Suncradle patrol?” Willen Ironmaul demanded.

The man glared at him, tight-lipped.

“Who is Grayfen?” Handil the Drum asked.

The man’s eyes narrowed with hatred, but he said nothing.

Cullom Hammerstand looked up from his counting-scroll. “How many of you are there, and what do you intend?”

Still the man stood in silence.

Willen Ironmaul glanced at his chieftain. “With your permission, Sire, I might persuade this creature to talk to us.”

The man glared at him contemptuously. “It would take more than you, dink.”

Colin Stonetooth sat down. “Help yourself, Willen. But try not to damage him beyond repair.”

“Aye.” The captain of guards nodded. Stepping away from the table, he removed his weapons and armor and strode to a clear area in the arena, clad only in kilt, shift and boots. “Send him to me,” he said.

The guards pushed the man forward, and he balked. “What is this? One man, unarmed, against dozens with swords?”

“No weapons,” Colin Stonetooth decreed. “And no one else will touch you. Only Willen.”

“He wants to fight me? One puny dwarf? So I kill him, then what? The rest of you kill me?”

“If you defeat Willen Ironmaul, human,” Handil snapped, “I will ask for your freedom. Father?”

“Agreed.” Colin nodded, turning a disinterested palm.

Again the guards hustled Calik toward Willen. When he was past the table, they gave him a shove and backed away. The man hesitated for a moment, then grinned wickedly at the unarmed dwarf waiting for him. The man stood almost a foot taller than Willen and was strongly built, with long legs, long arms, and burly shoulders. “I’ve killed a dozen real men in the pits,” he hissed. “I’ll make this quick, dink.” His grin widened, and he spread his hands as though in embarrassment. Then, abruptly, he crouched and lunged at the dwarf.

It was as though the man had run into a wall – into it and over it. There was a thud of colliding bodies, then Calik was on the floor beyond Willen, tumbling and skidding. He raised himself, shook his head, and blinked. Then, with a shouted curse, he launched himself again, towering over the dwarf, hard fists swinging.

Willen met the man halfway, went in under his blows, and delivered a jarring punch to his midsection. Even as the man gasped, the dwarf was behind him, kicking his feet out from under him, and several solid blows rained on him as he fell.

Untouched and unshaken, Willen Ironmaul stepped back. “Are you ready to talk to us, human?”

Enraged, Calik got his feet under him, rushed, whirled, and aimed a lethal kick at the dwarf’s head. Strong hands blocked his leg, twisting it, and Calik fell on his face. Willen Ironmaul twisted the man’s arms behind him, ground his face against the stone floor, then stood and delivered a judicious kick to his ribs. “Now are you ready to talk to us?” he asked. “Everyone is waiting.”

Calik’s response was a sudden kick that caught Willen in the side and sent him staggering back. Snake-quick, the man pressed his advantage with a rush, a knee to the dwarf’s face, and a two-fisted blow to the back of the neck that might have killed a human. Willen went to his knees, seeming dazed, and the man threw himself onto him, trying to bear him down, to get a killing hold on throat or spine. But the dwarf who had seemed dazed suddenly was upright beneath him, lifting. In an instant, Willen had the flailing, writhing man above his head, and with a heave he threw him across ten feet of empty floor.

Calik lit, rolled, and crashed against the side of the council table. Before he could move, Willen was on him, pummeling, punishing and bruising him. Calik screamed.

Willen felt small, strong hands pulling him away. Tera Sham’s voice said, “Willen, please! That’s enough!”

He let her pull him back, breathing deeply to clear the battle-rage from his head. She was right, of course. The man lay groveling on the floor, obviously defeated. Willen turned toward Tera and heard a gasp as her eyes looked beyond him. Calik was not through. With a shout he came upright, grabbed the sword from in front of Colin Stonetooth, and raised it over his head. When it fell, slashing downward, its bright edge barely missed Tera. Willen pushed the girl back, out of the way, and waved off the dozen or more armed dwarves who were rushing toward him. “Stay!” he commanded. “The human has made his choice.”

Willen ducked aside from the maddened human’s second cut, dodged the third, and went in under the fourth. In the blink of an eye, Calik was bent over backward, the sword still waving in his hand, and Willen’s short, massive arm was around his neck. With his other arm, the dwarf locked the man’s shoulder … and pivoted, twisting.

The sound of Calik’s neck breaking was almost drowned by the clang of the dropped sword falling from a dead hand.

Willen stepped away, letting the big body slump to the floor. He looked toward Colin Stonetooth. “He chose not to speak, Sire,” he said.

“It is a bad omen,” Tolon Farsight muttered.

“A bad business,” Handil agreed. “Humans – even those friendly to us – won’t like dwarves killing humans.”

“I had no choice,” Willen Ironmaul told him. “You saw it.”

“No, it was his choice,” Handil agreed. “But there will be anger.”

Guards hurried forward to drag Calik away. At the council table, Frost Steelbit stood. “There are many questions, Sire,” he said to the chieftain. “But the first of the questions faces us now. With what we have seen, and what we might guess, do we continue with Balladine this year?”

Before the chieftain could answer, his second son, Tolon Farsight, pushed forward. “Cancel the Balladine, Father,” he said. “This business is an omen. Thorin is in danger from humans. It is best to barricade and guard, and let no human approach this season.”

“The people of Golash and Chandera are our friends,” Colin pointed out. “They have not threatened us.”

“Humans threaten us!” Tolon growled. “Does it matter which ones? I say bar them from Thorin. The danger is more than the gain.”

Colin Stonetooth gazed around at all of them thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Balladine is as important to us as it is to our neighbors,” he said. “We need the humans’ goods in trade, just as they need ours. Let the call continue, let the plans proceed. But” — he stood, turning away — “we shall be very careful this time. Very careful indeed. Tell the people to look to the left side of their tools.”

Chapter 5

THE HEART OF EVERBARDIN

The left side of the tools.

Every Calnar past the age of first-crafting knew the meaning of that. From the old tales came many sayings, each with a wisdom of its own. One was, “If there are enemies, raise your hammer and see it in a mirror.”

The meaning was clear. In Thorin, though the finest of weapons were crafted there, few people owned swords and lances. Except for the finely made weapons carried by the guards, and the elaborate, exquisitely balanced blades carried by a few others, including the chieftain and the Ten, “weapons” were scarce. A sword was a clumsy, heavy thing, useless for any kind of work except fighting. For games and as a climbing tool a balanced javelin was far better than a lance, and bows and arrows were of no practical value in the delving of stone, the crafting of furniture and finery, the weaving of tapestries or the shaping of clay vessels.

Humans and others outside of Thorin often thought of the dwarves as being heavily armed, but that was only because most truly fine weaponry in the region came from Thorin. The best of blades, the finest arrowheads, the most valuable spearpoints and daggers, even the massive war machines that human realms coveted, all came from the foundries, forges, and shops of the dwarves of Thorin. They were a major part of the Calnar’s stock in trade, because there were always so many people so anxious to have them.

It was said, among humans and other races, that the best steel was Calnar steel. The fact was, in all the realms within sight of the Khalkists at least, Calnar steel was the only steel. People of many races could craft in bronze and tin, and some in iron, but in these lands only the dwarves made steel.

Even the plainest Calnar trade sword would bring fifty bushels of grain at Balladine, and a Calnar steel arrowhead was worth as much as a Calnar steel coin. Humans preferred the arrowheads to coins because they had an alternate use in a pinch.

Thus, the Calnar were weapon makers for a large part of the world as they knew it. Dwarven weaponry was everywhere – except in Thorin. Few dwarves owned so much as a short sword, or cared to. To the practical-minded dwarves, a thing that was neither useful nor decorative was hardly worth having.

So there were few weapons in Thorin – as those outside of Thorin knew weapons. But there were tools. It was the nature of the Calnar: tools were as natural to them as breathing. They cherished their tools, and used them constantly.

Thus, the old saying: If there are enemies, raise your hammer and see it in a mirror.

The only difference between a hammer for driving a chisel in stone or for clearing tunnels, and a war-hammer, was in how one looked at it. An axe was for felling timber, a maul for splitting rails or squaring stone, a sling for delivering small tools and materials from one subterranean level to another, and a javelin was for securing lift-lines in climbs. But a good axe could as easily cleave bone as wood, a maul could as readily smash a shield as drive a wedge. A sling could throw missiles as well as supplies, and a well-aimed javelin could be as deadly as any spear.

A helmet was to protect one’s head from falling stone in a delve. A shield was for clearing rubble and deflecting rock showers. Body armor – sometimes metal and sometimes leather – was for working in the foundries, where sparks could fly, and in the finishing shops where implements might be flung from grindstones and burnishing wheels. But these could have other uses as well.

Raise your hammer and see it in a mirror. Look to the left side of your tools. Be ready to stop work and fight. It was a thing that any dwarf understood. The difference between a tool and a weapon is in the mind of the user and in the circumstances of use.

Word had already spread to the crafters’ galleries by the time Handil the Drum arrived there, carrying the great, deep-throated vibrar with which he had begun the Call to Balladine. The mighty drum was his own invention – a steel-banded barrel of tapered and curved hardwood slats, capped at each head by tightly drawn buffalo-hide leather. Within were other “heads” of various materials, each pitched to capture and amplify the resonance of the membrane before it. Oval openings around the center of the barrel broadcast its thunder when either head was struck.

Played atop the Sentinels, Handil’s drum could be heard for miles and its echoes much farther. The Thunderer was not the biggest drum in Thorin, but it was by far the most powerful.

He carried it wrapped and muted now – as the drums always were when brought within the undermountain realm.

The sun-tunnel lighted concourse leading to the crafters’ galleries was crowded, as usual, with dwarves hurrying here and there on their various errands. Handil stepped aside to let a sled crew pass. Two great Calnar horses in harness hauled an eight-foot block of hewn granite from one of the new delves while a dozen sturdy Calnar armed with prybars and mallets worked the skids. When the crew was past, Handil went on, nodding to an acquaintance now and then. Sledges rang at a side tunnel where cart rails and tow-rings were being placed for a new cable-way leading up from the farming warrens. Across the concourse, hewers and reaves were at work, fitting massive timbers into newly cut stone to expand the weavers’ stalls.

The chieftain’s order to be ready for trouble had put worried frowns on many of the faces in the concourse but had not interrupted the rhythm of the place. As always, there were Calnar everywhere, doing all kinds of things, and like every public part of Thorin, the great way was a bustling, flowing turmoil of busy dwarves.

Handil slowed his pace as he neared the shops. Here the corridors were even more crowded than usual, and it seemed everyone was carrying various tools and items of armor. Lines had formed as people waited their turns to sharpen spikes, fit wrist straps onto hammers, repair buckles on chest-guards, or mount horns or spikes on their helmets. Handil grinned at sight of a gray-haired, aging woman dragging a long-handled heavy maul taller than herself. In her free hand she carried a foot-long, curved spike as sharp as a dagger. A glance at the maul’s head told him what she intended to do. She wanted the spike welded to the trailing face of the big splitter.

She was looking to the left side of her tools.

His grin deepened, strong teeth glinting behind his dark whiskers. The venerable mother probably had not the faintest idea of who might be an enemy, he thought, but gods help the enemy who got in the way of that tool.

“Handil? I thought I saw you here!” The voice from behind made his eyes light, and he turned. Wide-set, serious eyes looked up at him from a broad, pretty face framed by reddish hair. Jinna Rockreave smiled at him, raising a finely crafted net sling. “I need a wrist strap for this,” she said, glancing at his drum. “What are you after? Blades for your drum rings?”

“Hardly.” He shook his head. “That wouldn’t be very practical. I thought I might modify the mallets a bit, though.” He studied her, seeing the pleasure in her eyes at their meeting. It was like his own pleasure at seeing her. “It has been too many days since we were together, Jinna. The Call and everything … but I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you.” She nodded. “Things have been so hectic, lately, I was afraid we might not meet until our day of joining. I didn’t want to wait that long to see you.”

“Nor did I.” He was still gazing into her eyes. “I … well, I keep having troublesome dreams. Sometimes I wake up thinking we might never wed at all … that you might change your mind or something. You haven’t, have you? Changed your mind, I mean?”

“Not in a million years, Handil Coldblade,” she chuckled, then turned serious. “What is the weapon call about? Is there danger?”

“There could be,” he warned her. “Probably not, but my father is being cautious. Tolon and some of the elders are concerned. There are strange humans about who seem not to like us very much.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Who can understand humans? It’s probably nothing, but with Balladine at hand, it’s as well to be prepared.”

“I suppose. Hurry, Handil. The line is moving.”

He looked around. A gap had opened in the line outside the shops, and dozens of people were looking at the two of them, some of them grinning openly. Many of the Calnar knew Handil Coldblade, and everyone knew of him. Handil the Drum was a famous person in Thorin, not so much for being the chieftain’s eldest son – everyone was somebody’s son – but for his magnificent drum and for other things he had invented, such as the turnable vanes which now were installed in most airshafts, allowing for pleasant temperatures in any season, and the winch-operated lift stages in the keep. Throughout Thorin, Handil the Drum was a celebrity.

Most also knew of the betrothal of Handil and Jinna Rockreave, pretty daughter of Calk Rockreave. Sight of the two young dwarves so obviously engrossed in each other was amusing to many of those waiting at the stalls.

The old woman with the splitting maul raised an eyebrow and said, “If you want to be in this line, then get a move on, or we’ll go around you.”

Handil glanced again at the big maul and the spikes, then stepped back. “Go ahead, mother. What you are doing looks far more useful than anything I had in mind.”

“I can see what you have in mind,” the woman said, glancing at Jinna Rockreave. “But the shops are hardly the place for it.”

Handil grinned, conceding, and turned away. “Come and walk with me, Jinna. We can see to our tools later.”

He was so absorbed in her that he didn’t see the rail-setter approaching, carrying heavy lengths of steel on his shoulder, until the workman turned and his burden collided with the forward end of the great, muted drum slung from Handil’s shoulder. The result was stunning, almost deafening. Even swathed, the Thunderer responded to the blow on its drawn head with a throb of sound that seemed to shake the very walls of Thorin. Here and there, little showers of dust and shards of stone fell from ceilings. People staggered, their hands going to their ears. A short distance away, timbers groaned and dwarves shouted curses as the massive, unsecured framing of the weavers’ stalls shifted in its footings.

Quickly, Handil swung the drum around, wrapping his arms around the center of it to muffle its resonance. The throb died to a rumbling echo, like distant thunder. Jinna was staring at him, wide-eyed, as were others all around.

The powerful drum-tone was followed by a moment of silence all along the concourse, then shouts and babbling as people hurried about, making sure no one was hurt and looking for structural damage in the stone walls. Apparently – and luckily – there was none. Still, Handil found a crowd of Calnar facing him as he redoubled the muting wraps on his drum.

“Someone other than the chieftain’s son would be up before the wardens for sounding a drum in Thorin,” a scowling carpenter snorted.

“Oh, back off, Hibal,” someone else said. “It was only an accident.”

“The kind of accident that could bring this concourse down upon us,” a rock-cutter said. “There are rules, you know!”

Handil faced them, level-eyed, and raised a hand. “Rules are rules,” he said, so that all could hear, “and no exceptions. You have my apology and my promise. I will report this to the wardens myself and take the penalty any would take.” He looked at the carpenter who had first objected. “Does that satisfy you, Hibal?”

For a moment, it seemed the carpenter might want to challenge. Hibal considered it, gazing at the wide shoulders of Handil, then shook his head. “Another time maybe. I have work to do.”

“Any time,” Handil assured him. “Whenever you like, and I’ll buy the ale afterward.”

Cale Greeneye had appeared from somewhere, inquisitive as always. The chieftain’s youngest son carried a long, wrapped parcel on his shoulder. As Handil turned away again, with Jinna, Cale fell into step alongside. “That was some noise you made, Brother,” he said. “If you were planning to put points on the vibrar, I don’t think you need to bother. That thing is weapon enough, just as it is.”

“I expect I’ll be hearing about that for a while,” Handil admitted dourly. He nodded at his brother’s parcel. “What have you there?”

“A sword,” Cale said. “That same sword that the man had. …” He glanced at Jinna, not certain whether she knew about the human who had died in Grand Gather.

“It’s all right.” Handil stowed his mallets in his belt and took Jinna Rockreave’s hand in his. “I’ll tell Jinna what has occurred. Where are you going?”

“I’m on my way to the guards’ hall to collect some armor and see about a horse. I’ll need …” He raised a brow, looking at his brother. “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Willen is organizing the guards for close patrols, so I volunteered to lead a search westward, to see if we can find out what happened out there. …” Again he glanced at the puzzled face of Jinna Rockreave, then continued. “It was my idea. The escort will be made up of volunteers.”

“Anything for a journey, Little Brother?” Handil grinned. “Still, you might find something. What did Father say about this adventure?”

“What could he say? I was going, anyway. He just said to keep my wits about me.”

“Good advice, considering what the wardens have learned about the wild humans. It sounds like Golash and Chandera are full of strangers. Unfriendly strangers.”

“Well, those are the concern of Cullom Hammerstand’s agents. I plan a far search … clear to the Suncradles, or beyond if necessary. I’ve always wanted to see what’s out there, anyway.”

Cale’s face – a face just made for laughter, many said – turned serious. “I will miss the Balladine, Handil, and I may miss your wedding, too. So I have something here, for both of you.” He opened his shoulder pouch and drew forth a small bag of fine suede. With a shrug, he handed it to Jinna.

The girl opened it, looked inside, and turned wide eyes on her future brother-in-law. “Oh, Cale! They’re beautiful!” From the bag she withdrew a pair of jeweled rings, exquisitely interwoven bands of silver and copper, with gold traceries so fine that the eye could barely follow them. Each band was inset with a trio of cut diamonds.

“They’re elvish work.” Cale shrugged. “I’ve had them for years, thinking there might be a good use for them. I’d be honored if you and Handil would exchange them at your wedding. That way, it will be as though I were there to add my blessing to your union.”

They stopped beneath a sun-tunnel to look at the rings, and Handil felt his throat tighten. Cale Greeneye … Cale Cloudwalker … Cale who was so different from most Calnar that he might have had elven blood in his veins had such been possible. Handil had never understood his youngest brother, even for a moment. Cale was always full of surprises – just such surprises as this. At a loss for words, Handil the Drum placed a fond hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Jinna looked as though there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, Cale, of course we will. These are a wonderful gift! And you will be there with us.”

“It’s just a pair of rings.” Cale said, embarrassed. “No big thing. Just – well, just think about me if I don’t see you again before your time. I’ll think of both of you, too.”

Without another word, Cale turned and strode away, his wrapped sword over his shoulder. He had said his brief goodbyes – to Tolon and Tera, to his father, and now to Handil and his Jinna. He was anxious to be away, to put the familiar sights of Thorin behind him, and see what some of the distant places held.

He was certain that the sword he carried had belonged to Agate Coalglow, and they said the horse that had returned was Piquin – Sledge Two-Fires’ favorite mount. It seemed certain now that the western patrol was dead, killed by wild humans. Agate had been Cale’s friend, and Sledge Two-Fires was a dwarf he had admired. It seemed appropriate to Cale that he take with him something of them when he went to look for clues to their fate.

Clues, and a look at what lay beneath the Suncradles – and maybe what lay beyond.

*

It was evening when Cale Greeneye rode out from Thorin, mounted on the high back of Piquin and followed by six other young adventurers who had volunteered to go with him. The sun was setting beyond the Suncradles, and soft evening light lay on the valleys. But both visible moons were in the sky, and there was light enough for travel. The horses were fresh, and the trails open.

Cale looked back, just once, at the great outer wall of Thorin. “Thorin-Dwarfhome,” he whispered. “Thorin-Everbardin, keep my soul. Welcome this one home should I never return.”

Then he turned his eyes westward, where the last glow of day outlined the wavy peaks of the Suncradles. “Keep pace,” he called to his companions. “There is a lot of world to see out there, and no better time than the present.”

Eyes watched them all the way across the Valley of the Bone and out the Chandera Road – furtive, sullen human eyes, hidden in shadows all along a closing line which would soon be a human cordon around Thorin. Eyes watched, but no man lifted a hand. The seven armed and mounted dwarves were packed for travel, and they were going away. They didn’t matter. They would be not be here to interfere with what Grayfen planned for the citadel of the dwarves.

Chapter 6

THE BETRAYAL

Bram Talien was worried. As trademaster of Chandera, he was responsible for the caravan wending its way toward Thorin, for the midsummer fair that the dwarves called Balladine. Normally, the annual journey was more a pleasure than a worry. As a trader and merchant, Bram Talien enjoyed visiting the Calnar fortress. It was a challenge to match wits with Cullom Hammerstand, the dwarves’ warden of trade, and he had a deep respect for Colin Stonetooth.

The dwarves were not human, of course, but there were dwarves whose company Bram Talien preferred over that of some people he knew.

The caravan was like a traveling city. Carts, wagons, barrows, pack beasts and laden travois by the hundreds wound upward on the mountain road in a line that was sometimes three miles long in the narrow passages, and fully half of the citizens of Chandera trudged along among them, tending stock and driving teams.

Here was the annual commodity wealth of Chandera: grains from lowland fields, spices and scents from the Bloten frontiers, hardwood timbers from the forests bounding the plains of eastern Ergoth, bonemeal and herbs, wooden baskets, tapestries and rugs, and a dozen kinds of wicker furniture. All were things that the dwarves of Thorin cherished and would trade for with their own commodities. And in special wagons near the front of the line was a real prize, something that would make the dwarven traders’ eyes go wide and their bids go high.

Most of the men were armed, and dozens of them were mounted, riding guard on the train. Never in memory had a Balladine caravan been seriously threatened. Sometimes thieves would try to slip into a night camp to filch whatever they could find, and now and then a wandering band of nomads might shadow the train for a day or so, but a caravan in strength was a formidable company, and there had never been an attack. But now Bram Talien was apprehensive.

All through the land, it seemed, things were changing. Just in the past year, strangers had come among them in Chandera, and it seemed to Bram that among his own people – the subjects of Riffin Two-Tree the Wise – moods had shifted. There was talk of Chandera being “poor,” and talk of fortune hunting. It was disturbing. Sometimes Bram felt as though some Chanderans were turning from the old ways and looking in strange, new directions. A sullen, angry discontent was spreading where before had been contentment.

And now there was the more immediate concern – the strangers in the distance, who clung to the caravan route as though the caravan were a flock of sheep being herded. The scouts reported large groups of people – strangers all – flanking and paralleling them, and hardly an hour passed that there were not people on the hilltops watching them.

Bram Talien had told Cullom Hammerstand’s dwarven agents about the strangers on Chandera land and of his concerns. It was common for the chiefs of trade to share such information prior to Balladine. But now, two days out from Riffin Two-Tree’s village, he realized that there were far more strangers in the land than he had known. They seemed to be everywhere – wild-looking, oddly dressed men who might have been assembled from dozens of different tribes – and the only certain thing about them was that they were all armed.

The land was full of movers these days, it seemed. Refugees from the south brought tales of horror, of dragons a’wing over Silvanesti, of dragonfear and dragonfire and awful magics which spread like sand on the winds: trees that danced and captured spirits, bogs that erupted vile acids, stones that exploded, and lightnings that crackled through the forests to find and strike some living thing.

How many dragons were there? Some said one or two, some said hundreds. Personally, Bram Talien doubted that any of the travelers had seen more than a few dragons, if any at all, but that did not diminish his concerns. One dragon alone would be enough to start panic and breed mass migrations.

The stories meshed in some way with the strange disappearance of elves from the realms of the eastern Khalkists. Elven parties had been common in past times. They had crossed Chandera now and then in their journeys and had shared fires with Chanderan herdsmen and patrols.

Often, in olden times, elves had even come to the dwarves’ Balladine, and the goods they brought to trade were much coveted.

But it had been several seasons now since Bram Talien had even seen an elf, though Riffin Two-Tree’s scouts had recently reported large numbers of what looked like western elves skirting the mountains south of Bloten, eastward-bound … eastward, toward Silvanesti.

Something was going on in the south, and the results in these lands were bands of migrants, uprooted tribes moving from where they had been to wherever they were going. But there was something different about the people who now flanked the Chanderan caravan. These did not look like refugees. They looked more like mercenaries.

Spurring his chestnut pony, Bram Talien rode forward along the plodding line of the caravan, feeling the wind in his beard as the horse ran. Though only half the size of the great, gold-and-white horses of Thorin, the chestnut was a good mount, as fast and strong as any in Chandera, and it was the trademaster’s favorite.

Forward of the camp carts, near the front of the train, eight high-sided wagons rolled along, each drawn by a double string of oxen. Bram slowed, casting a careful eye over the wagons and their teams and rigging. Here was the special commodity with which he hoped to gain trade concessions from Cullom Hammerstand. In the high ranges on the eastern perimeter of Chandera, diggers had found a large deposit of the shiny, black firestone that the dwarves used to smelt iron and make their steel.

Cullom Hammerstand would do everything in his power to try to get the firestone for a low price. Bram smiled faintly, imagining the posturings and hand-wringing the wily dwarf would go through, trying to trade him down. Chandera would see a handsome profit this year at Balladine.

Some of the drivers and crewmen tending the high wagons turned to watch the trademaster pass, and one or two waved.

He waved back. “Tend your loads well,” he called. “This year we will out-trade the dwarves of Thorin.”

“We’ll get this stuff there, Trademaster,” a man called, “but it’s your task to see we get a good price for it.”

Bram nodded and started ahead again, then frowned as another voice came to him on the wind – another man, speaking to his companions. “If we had the dwarves’ smelters and forges, we’d have no need to trade with them,” the voice said angrily. “If we had Thorin, we’d make our own steel, and high time we did. Those selfish, bit-pinching dinks have held Thorin too long, as I see it.”

Bram looked around, but whoever had spoken had turned away, and the others looked away as well. … Were they embarrassed at the words? Or did some among them agree?

It was troubling.

At the head of the caravan, Bram pulled up alongside Riffin Two-Tree, chief of the Chanderans. The chief rode a white horse and carried sword and shield as he always did when afield. With his iron-gray beard and studded helmet, his shoulders bulging against the seams of his leather-and-bronze coat, Riffin Two-Tree looked as fierce and formidable as he always had, until one approached very closely. Then the fading color of his cheeks, the slight moistness of his crinkled eyes, were a reminder that this man had been chief for more than fifty years, and was older – despite his stamina – than most humans ever expected to be.

“News from ahead?” the trademaster asked.

Riffin glanced around at Bram, his old eyes troubled. “We’ll be at the meadows below Thorin by nightfall,” he said, “but the scouts say the encampment is full – people everywhere.”

“The Golash caravan is there ahead of us?”

“Not Golash.” The old chief shook his head. “Garr Lanfel’s train is still a day away. These are others – hundreds of armed men, like those who flank us in the hills. The scouts say their encampments fill half the valley already, with more arriving by the hour. And they carry no trade goods of any kind.”

Bram Talien frowned. “What does it mean, my chief? What is happening?”

“It could mean trouble for the dwarves of Thorin,” Riffin Two-Tree said. “It has the look of an invasion, and if we’re not careful we could find ourselves caught up in it.”

“Then we should stay back,” Bram suggested. “Thorin is Chandera’s friend. We have no argument with the dwarves.”

Riffin turned to look at him. “Are you sure, Bram? You have heard the talk, just as I have.”

“Some of our people are discontented,” Bram agreed. “It comes of jealousy, I think.”

“I think it is more,” Riffin rasped. “I think there are those among us who are doing their best to spread hatred toward the dwarves.”

“But why?”

“To serve someone’s purpose, obviously. But you are right, Bram. We will hold back until we know what is going on. I want no part in any plot against Colin Stonetooth’s people … for more reasons than one.”

Bram nodded. “They are our friends.”

“Yes, they are our friends. But even if they weren’t, I’d want no part of war with Thorin. Don’t ever underestimate the dwarves, Bram. They would be a formidable enemy.”

“Thank the gods we don’t need to test that,” Bram said. “Once within sight of Thorin, I’ll call a halt. We’ll keep our distance for a day or so, until we know —”

A shout from the rear interrupted him, and he turned. All along the caravan, flankers were closing in – the strangers, coming out of the hills, closing in on the long train like a well-organized cordon.

And just ahead, at the top of a rise, riders appeared – heavily armed men, spreading out across the road.

Riffin Two-Tree drew his shield from his shoulder and unslung his blade. All around him, Chanderan guards followed suit. Bram Talien spun his pony around and raced back along the caravan, shouting, “Alarm! Alarm! Close for defense!”

The rearward sections were already in motion, drivers whipping up their teams and carters grabbing their leads. Within moments, the long, ambling line of the caravan was a shortening, thickening thing, widening at center as the heavier vehicles pulled out right and left to let the travois, pack beasts, and sleds move in between them. Women, children, and old people were hurried forward, carrying their personal gear, into the center of the closing mass of vehicles and stock. Men not driving teams grabbed up their weapons and ranked themselves along the outer perimeter, their lines closing as the caravan became a moving oval compound, then a tightly-packed circle.

Suddenly, here and there, chaos erupted. Here a team broke free from its traces, leaving a wagon stranded. There a runner-barge overturned, spilling its load. Elsewhere two carts collided and broke down where they sat.

Bram Talien saw some of these things and drew his own blade. “Sabotage!” he muttered, heading into the crowd around a broken wagon. But armed men confronted him there, denying him entrance. A man he knew – Grif Newgrass, one of his own neighbors – raised a heavy sword and shouted, “Stand back, Trademaster. There’ll be no trading this year. We’ve a better way to get what the dwarves have!”

Bram circled about on his mount, trying to understand what was happening, and found himself surrounded by riders, all carrying their weapons at hand. The strangers were upon them, surrounding them, and in the distance ahead, at the front of the caravan where old Riffin Two-Tree and the Chanderan guards were, steel rang on steel.

The trademaster saw a wagon driver pitch from his seat, clutching at an arrow in his throat. He saw a line of barbarians charge, with lances and swords, into a cluster of panicked Chanderan workers. He wheeled his horse and dodged a spearpoint as an attacker lunged at him. With a flick of his sword he scored the man’s cheek, then drove the blade home beneath his chest-plate. The man screamed and twisted, and Bram fought to withdraw the sword. Something rang against his helmet, sending it flying from his head. He freed his sword, twisted sideways in his saddle, and started to swing at the man behind him … and again something hit him – this time a solid, clubbing blow against his temple.

The world went dark for Bram Talien.

*

He awakened slowly, fighting the throbbing ache in his head. When he tried to move, pain blinded him for long moments, but finally he fought it down, opened his eyes, and raised his head.

He lay in a crude tent of some kind. A fire burned near his feet, and smoke hung thick above the heads of the men who sat around it, watching him. Bram’s hand went to his belt, but there were no weapons there.

The man nearest was burly and dark-bearded and looked familiar. He turned his head, and the trademaster recognized him. It was Grif Newgrass. The others were strangers – outlanders. Grif grinned and nodded his head. “You’re awake,” he pointed out. “That’s good. Thought maybe our new friends had killed you.”

With a tongue as dry as leather and a voice that was no more than a rasping whisper, Bram Talien asked, “What is happening, Grif? Who are these men?”

“Doesn’t matter who they are,” the man said. “Only thing that matters for you is to do exactly like you’re told. You see, the old chief … well, he kind of met with an accident, so now the good people of Chandera need somebody to answer to. Somebody they’re used to answering to. You’re the trademaster, so you’ll do. We’ll tell you what to say to them.”

“What do you want?”

“Why” — the man’s beard split in a toothy grin — “we got business with those dinks in Thorin. That’s what our new friends call dwarves. Good word, isn’t it? – Dinks. They have what we want, and we’re going to take it.”

“Thorin’s what we want,” another man growled. “Time human people had that place. Our leader has plans for it. The dinks know you. You’ve done business with them. So you’ll be our decoy and our shield.”

“Why should I do what you say?” Bram struggled to a sitting position, his head ringing with pain.

The man waved a casual hand. “Show him, Clote.”

Across the tent, the one called Clote stood and pulled back a wide flap, opening the shelter. Beyond was the remains of the caravan – teams and conveyances drawn into a solid ring. Within the ring, Chanderan men labored, carrying things here and there, while armed strangers – and a few Chanderan traitors – strode among them, supervising.

And in the center of the enclosure a crude fence had been erected. As men moved past it, Bram’s eyes widened in shock. Within the fence were women and children. At the corners of the fence, archers sat atop short towers. At a signal from the man at the tent flap, rough men pushed into the enclosure, shoving women and children aside, then appeared at the fence holding two women, pushing them forward into view.

Bram’s mouth twisted in a snarl. “Chara,” he muttered. “And Corian.” With a lunge, he tried to get to his feet. His hands went out, searching for a weapon – or for a throat to throttle. Grif Newgrass punched him cruelly in the stomach, then kicked his feet from under him. “You just don’t understand, do you, Bram?” he spat. “Riffin Two-Tree and his soldiers are dead, and you’re not in charge any more. We are.”

“Told you those women would get his attention,” another man chuckled. “The trademaster’s wife and his daughter. Just say the word, Grif, an’ I’ll see to both of them, myself.”

The dark-bearded one ignored him, gazing indifferently at Bram Talien. “That’s why,” he said, casually. “Right there’s the reason why you and everybody else here will do exactly as you’re told.” He glanced outside, then turned again, a cruel smile parting his beard. “Oh, and don’t expect any help from the Golash bunch. Grayfen’s people have them, too, just like we have you.”

“You’ll never get away with this,” Bram gasped. “The dwarves …”

“… might never know what hit’em,” Grif shrugged. “Or maybe they will, and they’ll fight. If so, you and your ‘good citizens’ will help us.”

“Never!” Bram spat.

“Oh, I expect you will. After all, we’re all human. When it comes right down to it, humans will side with humans against a bunch of ugly dinks.”

*

Somewhere beyond the captured caravan, beyond sight of Bram Talien but not far away, the rivers called Hammersong and Bone flowed through their valley. Just across, the camps of the humans spread to the foot of the terraces, which rose in methodical, precise steps toward the west wall of Thorin Keep.

Mighty Thorin stood above it all, massive and shuttered behind great gates. Yet still the call for Balladine – the chorus of the thunder-drums – rang through the mountains. Come trade with us, they seemed to sing. Come and be our guests for Balladine.

Soon, the gates would open. Then Thorin would also be open – to attack.

In a magically protected hut among the encampments, two embers of red glowed in the dark interior beyond a low portal. Grayfen Ember-Eye rested, preparing for tomorrow. With his eyes removed, he was free of the searing pain they always brought him, and he could review his plans.

He could only estimate the strength of the dwarven fortress. Humans had been inside the place, as far as the great hall called Grand Gather, but he knew of none who had been beyond. It was reasonable to assume, though, that the great foundries and smelters lay beyond, and the shops and sleeping quarters. There would be some internal defenses, of course, but nothing that his hordes could not overcome.

How many dwarves were there? No one seemed to know, but it was assumed that there were several thousand at least. The big cavern of Grand Gather, which some people had seen, would hold several thousand. But Grayfen was not worried by that. Even if there were five thousand dwarves in that great lair, he still had the forces to outnumber them. And once inside, numbers would prevail.

The gates would open for Balladine. Once open, it required only a first assault force to hold them open until his men could get inside. And Grayfen had the means to hold the gates. The magic imposed upon him long ago by that sorcerized dwarf was a wild magic, and hard experience had taught Grayfen that his use of it was limited. But he had learned some uses, and they would serve him well at Thorin.

Resting, he wished that he could truly sleep, but darkness would not come. Resting on their pedestal, the two red orbs gazed from the hut at the red panorama beyond, and as always, Grayfen saw what they saw. In bright red hues, the scene lay there before his removed eyes – the fortress of the dwarves.

Great, planted terraces climbed the mountainside like huge steps. At the back of the uppermost terrace stood Thorin Keep, a monolithic structure of stone blocks lined with balconies and flanked by the two lower sentinel towers. The third and highest tower, called the First Sentinel, stood on the slope above the keep, a tall, stone spire overlooking all of Thorin.

Below the lowest balconies were the great gates, and behind the gates – deep within the mountain itself, beyond the stores and trade stalls – was the gigantic cavern called Grand Gather. That much of Thorin, Grayfen knew by heart. What lay beyond was only conjecture, but there was no doubt that there were smelters, foundries, and forges. The clouds of steam that rose from the mountain peak far above and beyond Thorin Keep said that they were there, somewhere below.

No human knew exactly what lay beyond Grand Gather, but that would change soon. Grayfen would know, and it would all be his.

Chapter 7

NIGHT OF THE LAST MOONS

No human knew what lay beyond Grand Gather, nor had any ever guessed the extent of Thorin. For what lay beyond the big cavern was most of Thorin. The visible face of Thorin Keep, the flanked gates, even Grand Gather itself, were only the antechambers of a huge complex where most of the Calnar lived their lives without ever seeing the world outside their mountain – or having any desire to.

Deep within the mountain, beyond Grand Gather, was an entire city built around a huge, cylindrical shaft that was the heart of Thorin. At the bottom of the shaft were the smelters, where vast, glowing fires never cooled. Above, at the next level, were foundries set in a circular cavern whose center was the great shaft. Above that, another “ring” cavern had been delved, with a ceiling that sloped upward toward the center shaft. Here were the forges of Thorin, a hundred feet below the grand concourse which was the city’s central district.

The great airshaft rose through this, up and up, ringed by delved caverns at regular intervals. Near the central shaft at each level were markets and stalls, shops and storage rooms, the quarters of wardens and marshals, and the manufactories where large implements and structures were assembled. Beyond, in each ring level, were the homes of the people of Thorin.

As the day of Balladine approached, Colin Stonetooth led an inspection tour of all central levels and nodded his approval. “We have always known that the day would come when Thorin would be threatened,” he told his wardens. “It is for this reason that nothing beyond Grand Gather has ever been opened to outsiders. Our greatest strength lies not in what others know of us, but in what they don’t know or even suspect.”

Tera Sharn, following along with her brother Tolon, shook her head. “Those people out there, waiting for the Balladine … they haven’t been enemies. They are our neighbors.”

“Some of them,” Willen Ironmaul corrected. “Have you looked out at the valley, Tera? I have. Never have I seen so many humans before. There are thousands of them, everywhere one looks. If every human in Golash and Chandera were there, it would not account for half that crowd.”

“I have seen,” Tolon Farsight breathed. “And I do not like what I have seen.”

“But Chandera and Golash are there!” Tera persisted. “Their banners fly above their caravans as always. They are at the front of the assemblage.”

“With many strangers just beyond,” Bardion Ledge, the waste warden, reminded her.

“Their banners are there,” Cullom Hammerstand agreed, “but where are Garr Lanfel and Riffin Two-Tree? They have not come to the gates to hail us, as they did in past years. Not even Bram Talien has come, seeking ale and news. It is strange, at least.”

“Ominous,” Tolon said darkly.

Tera Sharn lowered her eyes, still shaking her head. “I hope there is some … some harmless explanation.”

“I hope so, too,” Colin Stonetooth laid a gentle, powerful hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “I pray to Reorx and all the covenant gods that tomorrow’s dawn will bring nothing more than the opening of a fine Balladine.”

“But until we know,” Willen Ironmaul muttered, “we keep our tools to the left.” The captain of guards turned to Wight Anvil’s-Cap, delvemaster of Thorin. “Are the inner gates prepared, Delvemaster?”

“They’re as ready as a thing can be that has never been tested,” the old dwarf growled.

“Tested?” A thin smile spread the whiskers on Colin Stonetooth’s face. “Wight, if you can devise a test for something that, once fallen, can never be raised again, I’d like to see it.”

The delvemaster was not amused. “Reorx grant us that they are never needed.” He shrugged. “Thorin would never be the same, ever again.”

“Reorx grant that none of our … defenses … ever are needed,” Colin agreed. “All the same, though, when the gates are opened tomorrow, I want everything in place, just as we have planned.” He raised his head, listening. Here in the higher levels of Thorin-Heart, the great ventilator shaft carried sounds from the outside world. The Balladine drums, which had continued to sing since Handil’s first stroke on his vibrar, rose in a crescendo of distant thunder, then stopped. The echoes died, and silence hung over the great peaks above Thorin.

“The moons have risen,” Tera Sharn said. “The call is done. Tomorrow begins Balladine.”

Beyond him, throngs of Calnar were coming and going on the public way. Almost everyone in sight carried a tool of one kind or another. Even the women and many of the children were armed.

Colin Stonetooth angled across the way to where a hand-wide trough, hewn from stone, ran for several feet along a wall between two buttresses. Clear water flowed through the trough, emerging from a three-inch hole in one pillar, disappearing into a similar hole in the next. The chieftain cupped his hands, dipped some water, and drank, then muttered an oath as a three-inch iron ball rolled out of the upper hole and along the trough, showering him with droplets of spray. “Rust!” he said. “I wish the tap warden could come up with some better way of maintaining his aqueducts.”

Another of the iron balls emerged, rolled languidly down the trough, and disappeared into the lower pipe.

“They work, though,” Tera Sharn pointed out. “The water is always clean.”

*

At the same time that Colin Stonetooth and his advisors were inspecting the dwarven city’s defenses, Handil the Drum and Jinna Rockreave stood atop Thorin Keep, watching the moons rise above the mountains. Wrapped in furs against the cold, they watched Solinari edge above the crag, and Jinna slipped her hand into Handil’s. “Will nights always be so beautiful?” she murmured.

He smiled down at her. “I promise it, my love. Always.”

“Oh? You can keep such promises, then, Handil Moonraiser?”

“Of course I can,” he chuckled. “With you beside me, there is nothing I can’t do. I’ll show you.” He pointed upward, toward the dark silhouette of the crag below the white moon. “Watch, just there. In a moment, I shall command a red moon to rise, to follow the white one into the sky.”

“Silly,” Jinna giggled. “Lunitari always rises there in this season.”

“Just because it always does, that doesn’t mean I didn’t make it happen this time, just for you.”

“I see.” She snuggled closer beside him. “And for how long will you have these marvelous powers, Handil Coldblade? Long enough to see us married, I hope?”

“Longer than that,” he assured her. “It is my intention to please you, my love, for as long as we both shall live.”

A red glow began to form above the dark crag, where wisps of steam-cloud danced in the mountain wind, rising from the hidden warmth of Thorin’s great central shaft. Gently, Handil released his hand from hers, and unslung the Thunderer from his back. With deft hands he unwrapped the big vibrar, letting its polished surfaces catch the moonlight. He handed its wrap to the girl and removed his mallets from his belt.

“I began the song this year,” he said. “It is only right that I help end it.”

Slinging the great drum under his left arm, he raised his mallets over its forward head, hesitated for a moment, listening to the song of the drums atop the Sentinels and the nearby slopes, then lowered them in a quick, soft tattoo on the drumhead. Instantly, the vibrar came to life, its deep voice floating outward on the air to join the song of the drums, swelling in volume as he blended his rhythm into theirs. The air above Thorin Keep seemed to throb with the powerful voice of the Thunderer, and the Sentinel drums responded, their voices blending in vast harmonies. Further drums, here and there on the slopes, added counterpoints to the fabric of sound.

Gradually, as the red glow brightened beyond the crag, Handil increased his tempo and his volume. The very mountains seemed to come alive to the sound of singing drums, and as the red moon appeared, adding its light to the white light of Solinari, the vibrar and all the other drums swelled to a crescendo that crashed and echoed among the slopes of the Khalkists. With a final tattoo of salute, Handil ceased his playing and muted the big drum under his arm, in exact synchronization with the muting of all the others, all about.

The echoes died away, and there was only the sound of the wind in the peaks.

Handil put away his mallets and replaced Thunderer’s wrap. “It is done,” he said, quietly. “With the sunrise tomorrow, it is Balladine.”

“Balladine,” Jinna echoed, turning to look westward, down the long rank of terraces. Out there, in the upper valley, hundreds of fires winked in the night – far more than she had ever seen before. “Balladine, and our wedding, yours and mine. Moonraiser mine, let it be all of that, and nothing more.”

“Anything for you,” he assured her. “For as long as we live.”

*

Mistral Thrax did not hear the drums end their call. At three hundred and eighteen years, Mistral Thrax was at least half a century older than any other Calnar, and he needed his sleep. It was his custom – and had been for as long as anyone could remember – to put away his scrolls when the light from the sun-tunnels began to dim, pick up his crutch, hobble the thousand yards from his cubicle to the Den of Respite, and shuffle to a table in the back, where “Mistral’s bench” always awaited him.

Sometimes it was Clamp Sandhaul who brought the old dwarf his half loaf, pot meat, and ale, and sometimes one of the young dwarves who tended table in the Den of Respite. Sometimes, when he was there, even Lobard Alekeg himself served the old lorespinner. But whoever did the serving, the service was always the same – a half loaf, pot meat, and a mug of cool ale. No one in Thorin could recall Mistral Thrax ever having anything else for his supper.

And always, at the lighting of lamps, Mistral Thrax finished his ale, put down a steel coin, and shuffled out of the place, leaning on his crutch, for the thousand-yard walk home to his bed.

Rarely did Mistral Thrax dream these days. Every dream a dwarf might dream, he had dreamed long since and put away. But on this night, his sleep was troubled, and the dreams came – dark, murky dreams that made him toss and fidget in his sleep. Troubling dreams … bits and pieces of scene and sound: metal ringing against metal, people running and screaming, stone walls dripping red with blood, blood as bright as the pair of disembodied red eyes that seemed to glow around and through each sequence. He turned, pulled his blanket tighter around him, and tried to push the dreams away.

They faded, then began again. In a chaos of confusion, people ran and scampered around him, turning to look back with frightened faces. Then there were bloody blades ringing against scarred, dented shields, and blood … blood, and bright, glowing red eyes that seemed to float tranquilly through the havoc, seeing everything. A muffled crash as huge stones dropped from a ceiling, thumping into place across a tunnel way with a finality that said they would never budge again. He seemed to be looking at the sealed tunnel, and those red eyes were beside him, seeing what he saw, then turning away.

And beyond the sealed tunnel … somehow he could see there, too, and what he saw was thunder – shattered stone crashing down, burying everything beneath it, dust rising from rubble – then darkness and silence, as still as a grave.

Mistral Thrax thrashed about in his sleep, frightened and troubled by the dream but unable to awaken. The dark nothingness was as ominous as the chaotic visions that had preceded it, and in the darkness was … something – a shadow, standing as though awaiting his notice, as though seeking permission to speak.

He tried to focus on the shadow, and it seemed to him that it was a dwarf – not Calnar, but a dwarf of some other kind. The dwarf was injured somehow, and bleeding from cuts, but seemed to ignore them. In his hand, glowing slightly, was a two-tined fishing spear.

“Speak,” Mistral Thrax said – or dreamed saying. “Tell me what this means.”

The injured dwarf gazed at him sadly from the shadows, then said, “When the future lies in the past, Thorin will be Thoradin. The exile will seek Everbardin, and many will follow. The way to Kal-Thax is west, Mistral Thrax. South and west. You will know the way.”

Mistral Thrax tried to speak, but the stuff of dreams held him silent. The suffering phantom seemed to come toward him and to touch his forehead gently with the tip of its double-tined spear. “One needs eyes to see what cannot be seen,” it murmured. “Do not be blind to the one whose eyes are not his own.”

The image faded, and abruptly Mistral Thrax was awake, shivering under his blankets. In the dimness of his stone-walled room he looked about, trying to understand. Thorin will be Thoradin? Thorin was home. Thorin-Everbardin – Dwarfhome, always. Home and hope were the same word to the Calnar, and the word was Thorin.

Why had the vision spoken of Thoradin? Thoradin was past tense – a sad, melancholy word. Thoradin – home that once was … lost home … lost hope.

Hope, though … hope was a thing of the future. Yet the vision had spoken of the future lying in the past … and of carrying the past to the future. Those who seek Everbardin. … What could it mean, to seek always?

The way to Kal-Thax is west.

Mistral Thrax sat up, rubbed his eyes, and hugged his blankets around him. He felt very cold. Just a dream, he told himself. It was only a dream. He could not have really seen Kitlin Fishtaker.

Chapter 8

THE ATTACK

The first day of Balladine, as always, was the day of solstice – the one day of the year when the sun at its zenith would shine directly down the great central shaft of Thorin. For the Calnar it was the holiest and most joyous day of the year, for a very practical reason. At noon of this day, every level of the city would be flooded with brilliant light, and at the very base of the city – the deeps of the great firewell around which the smelters roared – the living flame of Thorin would be renewed by the direct, focused light of the sun, magnified and amplified by huge lenses of clear, perfect quartz high above.

For this day, the paths to the smelters were blocked. No one would enter the great pit that surrounded the firewell, or even the shielded smelters above. The carbon shields were rolled back to receive the fireflash that was the original – and secret – reason the dwarves celebrated Balladine.

Starting the day before, the lowest levels had been evacuated as always. When fireflash occurred, the heat there – even in the recesses of the smelter level, far from the firewell – would be too intense to survive. But it was only for this day, and the mighty furnace that was Thorin’s foundation – a pit of pure magma – would be rejuvenated for another year.

The principle and the annual phenomenon of the solstice fireflash were as old as Thorin itself. But not older. It was no ancient ogre-work that had built the central shaft with its levels, the foundry regions, and the firewell. Some believed that the firewell itself was a gift from Reorx, but all the rest was pure dwarven craft and lay far deeper into the mountain than the old ogres had ever thought of delving.

The pit at the bottom was the very substance of Thorin, and the Calnar’s greatest secret. Coal, coke, and other firestones were used in the foundries and the forges, but it was the firewell itself that gave them steel, and the annual fireflash on solstice day fed the firewell.

As usual, the big gates of Thorin Keep would open shortly before noon. Knowing nothing of the inner workings of Thorin, or of the firewell and the solstice, visitors to Balladine took it as quaint dwarven tradition that the gates always opened when the sun was overhead. In fact, though, the reason was practical, as were most dwarven traditions. Not only the obvious gates below the keep, but actually every entrance to Thorin – most of which were cleverly hidden – was opened at the same time. During fireflash, it got hot in Thorin, and the opening of ways was to air the place out.

The morning sky blazed beyond Thorin Crag when sally ports in the great gates swung open, and a company of guards emerged to take positions on the highest terrace. When the guards were in their places, trumpeters appeared and formed ranks on each side of the portal. Troops of liveried dwarves followed them, carrying banners. When this array was assembled before Thorin Keep, the trumpeters raised their burnished horns and shrilled a five-note call.

Below Thorin, on the roadways flanking the lower terraces, the caravans of Golash and Chandera were already in motion, creeping upward like great, distorted serpents – long trains of wagons, carts, barrows, and travois, with their teams in harness and their attendants flanking them.

At the sound of the trumpets, a gold-and-black banner climbed its pylon atop Thorin Keep, followed by a white banner with a blue cross. Banners arose in unison at the lead of each approaching caravan – the banners of Chandera and Golash, each accompanied by the blue cross flag of trade.

It was a ceremony as old as Balladine. The Calnar showed their colors and the blue cross. Their visitors showed their own colors and the blue cross. Each thus declared this to be a time of peace, a time of goodwill, a time to gather and mingle and exchange the goods of commerce.

At the second terrace, the human caravans turned toward each other and spread out, and even before the carriers had stopped rolling there were people at work, erecting pavilions, rolling back wagon covers and setting up shop. On the first terrace, Cullom Hammerstand and his traders led a procession of heavily laden Calnar into the open and directed the erection of the pavilions of Thorin.

Hammers rang, buntings arose, and the morning air was alive with the sounds of preparation.

As was his custom, Cullom Hammerstand went with a pair of guards to the lip of the first terrace, fifteen feet above the beginning of the second. For a time, he wondered whether his counterparts would come to exchange greetings, then he saw them, issuing from the assembling stalls to right and left – Bram Talien, coming from the Chanderan caravan, and Barak Toth from the Golash ranks. Each was accompanied by large men Cullom did not remember seeing before … men who wore swords at their belts and shields on their backs, and who carried bows. It was far more than ceremonial weaponry. The trade warden glanced at his own guards, who had noticed the same thing. It was obvious that they did not like what they saw.

Cullom waved a troubled salute at Bram Talien, then at Barak Toth, and raised his eyes to look beyond. Usually Garr Lanfel, the Prince of Golash, would come himself. But today there was no sign of him. Cullom frowned, wondering. Many things were strange this year, and he shared the uneasy feeling his chieftain and the others had. Balladine seemed to be opening as usual – but he knew that something was wrong.

Behind Cullom, one of his guards hissed in surprise, and Cullom glanced around. The guard, a sturdy dwarf named Sand Sakor, was turned half away, looking here and there. He seemed puzzled. “Odd,” he muttered.

“Is something wrong, Sand?”

The guard shook his head. “I guess not. I felt … or thought I felt … someone touch me.”

“Who?”

“I guess I imagined it, Trademaster. It was as though someone brushed past me just then. But there’s no one here.”

Bram Talien approached with his armed escort and stopped just below the rim. The human trader’s face looked pale, and he kept his eyes down.

“Greetings, Bram Talien,” Cullom Hammerstand said. “Do you bring fine works to trade this Balladine?”

“The usual, Cullom Hammerstand.” The human still kept his eyes averted, though the two men with him leered and grinned at the dwarves just above. Their manner was arrogant, bordering on insulting.

“Do you have any … ah … unusual commodities this year?” the dwarf pressed. “I see large wagons there, in your caravan.”

“It is only coke, Trade Warden,” Bram Talien said, stiffly. “As usual.” He raised his eyes, then, and there was a plea in them. “Firestone, for your forges … as usual.”

Cullom Hammerstand hesitated. The man was telling him something, giving him a warning.

The Golash contingent arrived then, and the dwarf noticed that Barak Toth’s guards were of the same cut as Bram’s. These were not men of Golash, any more than those with the Chanderan were of Chandera.

Barak Toth looked as frightened as Bram Talien, and Cullom Hammerstand felt a rush of intuition. The human traders were not here freely. Their guards were not their escort, they were their captors. The Chanderan and the Golash traders were prisoners!

He sensed that his own guards, behind him, had come to the same conclusion, but they kept their silence while Cullom Hammerstand thought fast. He glanced at the sky, then spoke to the humans below the terrace rim. “You who come in peace are welcome here, as always. The gates will open soon, and Balladine will begin. You should hurry, now, and make the usual placements.”

Those below looked puzzled. One of the Chanderan’s guards – or captors – demanded, “And what usual placements might that be, din … ah, Sir Dwarf?”

“Why, the usual. It is customary for all women and children, and the infirm, to go down to the third terrace to await Balladine … ah, so that our providers can serve them refreshment there while the trading begins.” He glanced at Bram Talien and Barak Toth meaningfully. “It is how we always do things here, is it not, my friends?”

“Of course.” Bram Talien answered, with a look of gratitude in his eyes. “We always do that … for their comfort.”

“Then hurry them away.” The dwarf nodded. “We must open the gates very soon.”

Cullom Hammerstand turned away, followed by his guards, and headed for the gates. He had heeded the veiled warning that Bram Talien tried to give him and had done all he could to repay the favor. Now he had to report to his chieftain.

At his side, one of his escorts glanced back, then leaned close to whisper, “Those people are hostages, I swear. The men with them are outlanders. There is going to be some trouble.”

“I know,” Cullom agreed.

The other escort asked, “Do you think they fell for that business about getting the innocents out of the way?”

“I don’t know.” Cullom shrugged. “It was the most I could do.”

“Do you think they mean to attack Thorin?” the first one wondered. He seemed astonished at the idea.

“I am afraid they intend to try.”

Passing through the dwarven pavilions, Cullom Hammerstand glanced at the sky again and quickened his pace. He wanted to tell Colin Stonetooth what he had learned, before …

But it was too late. Even as they rounded the last pavilion, the trumpets sounded again, and Colin Stonetooth emerged from Thorin Keep, mounted on his great horse and followed by the Ten. In perfect parade drill, the group rode out from the sally port, then spread and turned their mounts, and the chieftain raised his hand. Trumpets shrilled, drums thundered, and the huge gates swung wide.

Balladine had begun.

*

The gates of Thorin were massive twin doors of hardwood timber, bound with heavy iron strap, hinged at either side of a portal twenty feet across by sixteen high. As with most gates and doors of dwarven make, the panels were a few inches narrower at top than at bottom, and the huge iron hinges were canted slightly inward. It was dwarven logic that an open door is not a door at all, so doors in Thorin were designed to close by themselves. An open door, unstopped, would swing shut by simple gravity.

Opening the great gates, though, required effort. Big, wide-arm windlasses were mounted in stone alcoves at either side of the entry corridor, with cables extending through sockets to levers beyond. A dozen dwarves at each side turned the windlasses, and the doors swung slowly outward until they stood wide. Oddly, through the turning, the gate openers, one after another, glanced around, puzzled, as though someone had tapped them on the shoulder. But there was no one there.

When the gates were fully open, they held pressure on the windlasses while others ran out to drop heavy iron pawls through ring-sockets, and into slots in the stone below. With the gates thus secured open, the openers and the stoppers stood aside, awaiting the processional of traders and barterers who would follow the chieftain out onto the high terrace. As they lined up at their posts, the pawlmen appeared as puzzled as the windlass-turners had been. Each felt that someone had touched him, though there was no one to be seen.

Only one among them even imagined he had seen anything. That one, frowning in bafflement, had the impression that a pair of red eyes had looked at him in the instant he turned.

The draft issuing through the keep was warm and becoming warmer. Far beyond, in the depths of Thorin, the sun-flare was building as the sun above the mountain neared its midday solstice. All accesses to the smelter and foundry levels now were closed, but even in the grand concourse the heat would be intense for several minutes preceding fireflash and for an hour or so afterward.

That was why Balladine always began outside, on the terraces.

*

The lookouts on the Sentinels saw the attack forming, but the sound of their horns was drowned by the trumpets blaring on the first terrace, where Colin Stonetooth had raised and then sheathed his sword – the ceremony declaring Balladine to be open. Atop Thorin Keep, Tolon the Muse heard the horns, looked up, and followed the gestures of the lookouts. From left and right, bands of armed barbarians were issuing from the cover of the caravans, racing for the top terrace and the open gates. Tolon leaned far out over the parapet, shouting and pointing.

Colin Stonetooth had sheathed his sword and was turning his tall horse toward the gates when he saw Cullom Hammerstand and two others running toward him, waving their arms. In the clamor, he could not hear them, but when Cullom pointed upward Colin saw Tolon. He looked in the direction that his son was pointing and saw the attackers – hundreds of men, armed with swords and lances, racing toward him. As he saw them, an arrow flicked past, missing him by inches, and another clanged off the half-slung shield of Jerem Longslate, First of the Ten.

“Arms!” Colin roared, pulling his sword free again. An arrow caromed off his gauntlet and embedded itself in the nearest gate, where the procession of Calnar barterers had just appeared. Colin waved them back as the Ten closed around him, using themselves and their horses as a living shield for their chieftain.

It was an all-out attack, and though the Calnar had been prepared, the sudden ferocity of it caught them off guard. A dozen dwarves fell within seconds, from arrows and thrown lances, and many more followed as the two bands of humans raced among the trading stalls, slashing and cutting.

A squadron of attackers made directly for the chieftain and ran into fury as the Ten counterattacked. Within seconds, the area near the gate was strewn with dead and dying humans, who had never realized that a Calnar and his horse – especially those of the Company of Ten – are a formidable fighting unit. Instantly, it seemed that the Ten were everywhere – swords swinging, shields ringing, and iron-shod hooves slashing with deadly precision. The first humans to reach Colin Stonetooth’s guard never had a chance.

“Back!” the chieftain called. “Retreat in order! Stoppers stand by the gates!”

He glanced around, deflecting an arrow with his shield, and stared.

At each gate, the pawlmen and the windlassmen beyond were on their knees, some even rolling on the ground, each clawing at his throat. Even in the turmoil, the sounds of their agony and the breaking of spines could be heard. Among them, for an instant, was just a suggestion of a pair of glowing red eyes.

The gates would not be closed. A magic had been done, and once open, the massive portal remained open.

Colin Stonetooth and those around him held their ground for a minute, and then for another, letting all the Calnar who could retreat through the gates. There were not many left to retreat. Cullom Hammerstand, trade warden of Thorin, lay dead almost at the feet of Jerem Longslate’s war-horse. His escorts lay beside him. Everywhere the terrace was strewn with corpses, and many among them were dwarves.

Some came from within to try for the gate pawls and were cut down as they appeared.

Three armed humans erupted through the living shield of the Ten, aiming for Colin Stonetooth. Two of them died under the hooves of his great, gold-and-white horse, and the third was split from neck to waist by the chieftain’s sword.

Everywhere along the thin line, attackers fell in their own blood, but for each one down, a dozen others charged forward. There were far too many of them to stop.

“Through the gates!” Colin Stonetooth ordered, and the Ten responded, backing their mounts, cutting and slashing, still protecting their chieftain in retreat.

Inside the great tunnel, Willen Ironmaul and three companies of guards reached the portal. They spread across the entrance in phalanx, and the chieftain and the Ten backed through their ranks, still fighting. Those humans pressing them suddenly found themselves confronted by dwarves on foot, armed with javelins, swords, and axes – a solid wall of shields, with mayhem flicking forth among them. The charge was stopped, but only for a moment. Beyond the shrieking, falling men were hundreds more, pressing to attack.

Grudgingly, the dwarves of Calnar retreated into their gaping shelter with its useless gates, and a torrent of howling barbarians poured in after them.

Chapter 9

BATTLE OF THE KEEP

The first invaders past the gates charged into the dimness of the great tunnel below Thorin Keep, then hesitated, slowing and searching as others piled in behind them. “Where are they?” men shouted. “Where did they go?”

Where moments before there had been ranks of slowly retreating dwarves, now there was no one. The dwarves had simply disappeared. But the confusion was only momentary. Among the marauders were men who had been within Thorin – agents of Grayfen who had lived among the neighboring tribes and had attended previous Balladines. They knew the ways of the fortress.

As men milled around in the subterranean roadway, peering at side tunnels and rising stairways cut into the stone, Sith Kilane and Bome Tolly pushed forward to take command. Kilane pointed down-tunnel with a bloody sword. “That way lies their arena, called Grand Gather. The keep is above us, up those stairs. We will split up here. Some of you follow Bome Tolly to Grand Gather. The rest come with me, up to the keep.”

Led by men who knew the way, the hordes divided and went in pursuit of the Calnar. Some, out on the terraces and around the gates, paused to loot the bodies of the dead, but most swarmed around and into the underground city. Many among them had waited years for just such a chance – to conquer and loot the fabled treasures of Thorin. Howling with bloodlust, their war cries ringing through the corridors and halls of Thorin Keep, those following Sith Kilane thronged onto the twin spiral stairways and raced upward, spreading and searching at each level.

Steel rang upon steel, and Thorin Keep echoed with the sounds of combat as human raiders encountered companies of dwarven guards at each level. The stairways wound upward, parallel spirals of hewn steps bending around monolithic pillars of dressed stone which rose within a vaultlike shaft. Everywhere they looked, the invaders saw more and more finery – tapestries gracing tiled walls, furnishings of the finest craft, bolts and swaths of exquisite cloth – and the higher they climbed the finer were the treasures displayed. The humans had thought the dwarves to be wealthy. Now their eyes glowed at the very richness of what they saw.

Guards met them at each level, fought and retreated, heavily outnumbered. Kilane noticed vaguely that his followers were fewer than they had been. Many had stopped at each level, anxious to steal what they could before someone else beat them to it.

It was fewer than a hundred invaders who took the rising stairs toward the highest level of the keep. Kilane halted them halfway up, raising a hand for silence. Somewhere nearby were faint rumblings that seemed to come from within the very stones.

“What is that?” someone behind him snapped. “It sounds like winches!”

Kilane raised his hand again, hushing them, trying to identify the sound. It did sound like winches being operated – a low, continual rumbling sound with a metallic, rattling undertone. Like cables on pulleys. He didn’t know what it was, though the noise from below had decreased, and he heard it clearly now. For a moment longer, the sound continued. Then it stopped, and an eerie stillness came over the vertical shaft with its two stairways.

In the silence, another sound grew. Far below, metal grated against stone, a series of sharp, hissing noises, each ending in a final-sounding thud. It seemed to go on and on, then ended with a heavy, metallic thump that echoed up the shaft. Around and behind Kilane, men gazed about in confusion. A dozen or so on the second stairway crowded the rim of the stairs, peering downward, and a man screamed as he lost his balance and fell, disappearing into the gloom below. A long moment passed, then the rest heard him land – not with a thud, as on the stone floor of the entry tunnel, but with a ringing, rattling thump, followed by clatters of small things falling.

From somewhere below, voices came: “Gods! That one is done for!” “What is that down there? What did he hit?”

And from farther down: “They’ve closed the shaft! Look at that, will you? We’re sealed off in here! There are iron bars clear across, wall to wall. The whole stairshaft is blocked off at the second level!”

Sith Kilane swore under his breath. It had been expected that the dwarves might have some surprises, but to slide cage bars across the whole shaft?

“We’ll have to go on,” he told those behind him. “The dwarves are just ahead. They’ve sealed themselves in here with us. Find them! We’ll make them let us out!”

With anger added to their energies, the horde of humans sped upward, a spiraling mass of armed men racing around twin pillars of stone, and came out on the highest enclosed level of Thorin Keep. Overhead, skylights flooded the wide hall and the corridors beyond with brilliant light.

And they were alone. There wasn’t a dwarf in sight, anywhere. The invaders spread out to search. Sith Kilane stalked the bright halls in a fury. All the way up Thorin Keep, there had been dwarves ahead of them. They had seen them, had clashed with their rear guards. They had been in hot pursuit. There had been dozens of dwarves … many dozens of them. But now they were just … gone.

“There must be secret passages!” Kilane shouted. “Find them!”

Long minutes passed in frantic search, then one of the men swept aside a tapestry on the back wall of one of the stair pillars and gawked at what he saw there. He shouted, and others came to look. It was a doorway, cut into the stone of the huge pillar. A small doorway – to humans – less than six feet high and about four feet wide. The closed door was of finely finished wood, highly ornamented.

Men pushed at the door, pried at its edges, and strained against it, but it would not move.

“Stand back!” Sith Kilane ordered. Raising his bloodstained sword in both hands, he swung downward at the center of the door. The blade struck and broke. The impact made Kilane’s teeth rattle. With the others, he peered at the gouge in the wood where his sword had hit it.

The wood was a veneer. Beneath its decorative surface, the door was solid metal.

*

When the humans first entered the stairways of the keep, Tolon the Muse had made up his mind – the invaders might get in, but none of them would ever get out alive if he could manage it. With guards fighting delaying battles at each level, Tolon rushed to get all the dwarves in the keep to the highest level, where the lift-stages opened. The human mob was still far down the stairs when Tolon assembled his survivors and opened the lift doors.

He held position there, on the upper level of the keep, while people streamed past him, entering the lifts nine at a time, packing the suspended stages one after another for their trip downward through the hollow pillars surrounded by the stairs.

Many of them were injured. At the lower levels the guards had fought, had held the stairhead long enough for other dwarves to stream upward ahead of the invaders. Some had died, and many were bleeding. Tolon had no idea how many Calnar had been in the keep when the attack came, but he guessed there were more than a hundred. Yet, when the last of them arrived in the upper hall, and he herded them toward the cable-lift, he counted fewer than fifty who had made it to the top. Grieving and dark-browed with a smoldering anger, the second son of Colin Stonetooth saw the last of them into the lift stages and shared the next stage with two injured guards. He sealed the portal behind him as he stepped onto the platform. Could the humans break through that door, into the lifts? He didn’t know. It depended upon the tools they could find. But it would not be easy.

In the meantime, he had a surprise for them.

Normally, only Colin Stonetooth himself could have ordered the keep sealed and had his orders obeyed. But the chieftain was not here, and looking at the fierce scowls of the armed Calnar with him – the remnants of an entire company of keep guards – he knew that they would follow his plan.

How many of the invading humans were in the keep? There was no way of knowing. Hundreds, probably. But it didn’t matter. Tolon had made up his mind that those who were there – who had invaded the very home of the leaders of the Calnar – were not going to leave.

Tolon did not know where the rest of his family was now. He had seen his father, retreating with the Ten on the first terrace, making for the gates. The chieftain must be inside now, maybe in Grand Gather or beyond. He had last seen Handil on his way to Grand Gather, carrying his drum as always, with Jinna Rockreave beside him. Cale Greeneye, of course, was gone – off on some adventure of his own choosing, with the pretext of seeking a lost patrol – and Tera Sharn had been on her way to the main concourse earlier in the day. Tolon wished them all well and muttered a prayer to Reorx for their safety as he lent a hand at the stage winches, inching the endless belt of the lift downward.

Of the family of Colin Stonetooth, only Tolon was present here, where human barbarians streamed upward through the keep. For here and now, Tolon the Muse would take charge of defenses.

“All able guards off at second level!” he called, his voice carrying downward to the stages below. “We’ll make for the winch chamber.”

Beside him, one of the guards grinned darkly. He had been thinking the same thing himself.

Not in living memory had the keep been sealed, but the mechanisms were sleek and ready. It was typical of the Calnar, with their loathing of rust and tarnish, that all metal artifacts in Thorin were kept in good repair. This included the racks of iron bars – some of them thirty feet long – in the winch chamber at second level, and the two-inch-wide holes drilled into the stone of the frontal wall at eight-inch intervals. Beyond the wall was the keep’s big stairshaft, and in its opposite wall, or in the stair pillars themselves, were sockets – one for each hole in the frontal wall.

Working swiftly, Tolon Farsight and ten sturdy dwarven guards lifted the long bars, fed them through their sleeve holes, and drove them home. Beyond the stone, each bar emerged into the stairshaft, slid across, and thumped into its socket. It took them less than two minutes to put all of the bars in place. Dimly, from beyond the stone, they heard a scream, and some of the bars rattled in their sockets.

With the bars in place, the eleven lifted a great, hewn timber and dropped it into iron stays at each end of the line of sockets. The mass of it completely covered the holes, sealing off the bars beyond. Now nothing more than eight inches wide was going anywhere past the second level of Thorin Keep.

With that done, Tolon led his guards back to the lift shaft, where his other charges – fewer than forty dwarves from the keep, mostly women and wounded guards – waited in the shadows.

From far above, they could hear the sounds of humans at the top level, beating on the steel door there, trying to force it open.

“I’m glad Handil isn’t here to see this,” Tolon muttered, staring up the great shaft with its endless, vertical row of lift stages. “This lift is his pride and joy. Next to that vibrar of his, it’s the best thing he ever invented.”

From a cabinet at the base of the shaft, they took tools – prybars and wrenches – and began dismantling the lift belt.

The last coupling had just been pulled when they heard the upper door, far above, crash open and the shouts of humans ringing down the shaft. By sound alone, they could almost see the humans up there, crowding into the chamber, beginning to haul on the pulley cables to descend.

Tolon pointed at the giant pulley wheels on each side of the lift base. “Spring the cables,” he said.

Guards on each side hefted prybars and slipped them under the rims of the wheels.

“Everybody stand back,” Tolon said. The little crowd shuffled away, into the shadows beyond the lift port.

The guards secured their prybars, heaved at them, and the cables jumped from their tracks on the wheels. The guards threw themselves back, one falling and rolling, as pandemonium erupted above. Abruptly the lift shaft was a chaos of falling debris – uncoupled stages slamming down, crushing the stages below, loose cable whirring and slapping in the confines of the shaft … and piercing screams. As the dust settled, Tolon tried to make out how many of the invaders had come down with the lift debris. But it was impossible to tell for sure. There wasn’t enough left of the men to sort out the pieces.

“So far,” Tolon the Muse muttered, “so good.”

The keep was sealed, and the humans within it would wait. With the lifts destroyed, there was nowhere for them to go.

Tolon led his little band into a side tunnel and sealed its entrance behind them. It was only a service way, a maintenance tunnel for the elaborate water system that supplied this part of Thorin. But it led to where he wanted to go.

A hundred yards of dimness, and the dwarves emerged into a narrow, ill-lighted cavern where rough wooden shelves lined the walls. Tools of all sorts were on the shelves, and Tolon easily found what he was looking for. There were hammers, delvers’ shields, and slings. And in a corner was a rack of three-inch iron balls. The heavy balls were intended for aqueduct cleaning, but Tolon had another use in mind. Every tool had a left side.

Leaving his injured in the hidden cavern with some of the women to care for them, Tolon and his guards made packs of sacking and filled them with cleaning balls. Each took a pack, a pair of web slings, a hammer, and a shield, and Tolon led them up a dark, winding tunnel that opened into a maze of windshafts. He looked back and found he had more help than he had expected. Fully a dozen of the dwarven women had armed themselves as the guards had and followed along.

Tolon nodded his approval. “Everybody pick a shaft,” he told them. “Follow it to its end, and feel free to kill any human you see.”

Some of the shafts led to the upper walls of Grand Gather, some to the vents of the first concourse, and some to the intakes on the outer wall of the keep. The airshafts would be almost impossible for a human to negotiate, but to the Calnar they were easy. The vents – always high above the floor beyond – would make fine ambush holes, and there wasn’t a dwarf in Thorin who was not deadly accurate with a sling.

Aqueduct cleaners! The ubiquitous three-inch iron balls would be lethal weapons when propelled by delvers’ slings. It was, however, unfortunate that one of the first humans killed by an iron ball that day – out on the first terrace – was Bram Talien of Chandera. The trader had just put a sword through the gullet of one of his captors and was trying to get back to his family when the ball smashed his skull. Shena Brightiron, whose sling propelled the missile, was a young Calnar maiden whose home was deep within Thorin, near the markets. In her entire life, she had seen only two or three humans, and to her they all looked alike.

They were the enemy.

Chapter 10

BLOODY SOLSTICE

Reinforced by members of Willen Ironmaul’s elite guard, Colin Stonetooth and the Ten held the human onslaught at the gates for long minutes, while the lower keep households, pavilion workers, and a hundred others who had survived the first rush fled toward Grand Gather and the city beyond. Then with the corridor behind them clear, the chieftain and his fighters wheeled and raced away, past the stairways to the keep, into the winding, rising corridor that led to Grand Gather. Behind them, growing numbers of invaders stumbled over their own dead at Thorin’s gaping portal.

It would take the humans’ eyes moments to adjust from the sunlight beyond the gates to the dimness within, and Colin needed that time to spring his next defense. There was nothing he or his warriors could do about the keep, except to hope that those within could hold out long enough to escape. Tolon was there … Tolon with his dark moods and his devious mind. He had been atop the keep when the attack began and had not emerged with the refugees.

Colin prayed to Reorx for his second son, at the same time baring his teeth at thoughts of the sort of havoc “Tolon the Muse” might dream up for those humans unfortunate enough to face him.

He did not know where Handil was, or Tera Sharn. Somewhere in the city, he hoped, away from the invaders. The chieftain feared for them. Tera – thoughtful, logical Tera! Faced with murderous enemies, Tera might try to reason with them. It would be her way. He understood well the reliance upon reason and logic that guided his daughter. It was her legacy from himself, and now he cursed the tendency. Tolon had been right. Colin should not have counted on reason and logic. Because he trusted his friends among the humans, reason had told him to trust humans. He had been wrong, and now Thorin was paying the price.

And Handil! Where was Handil? Colin did not doubt his oldest son’s courage, or his ferocity in battle. Handil was a fighter, for all of his indifference to rule. But what could one do against invaders, with a drum?

Within moments, the humans would be after them, and Colin Stonetooth cursed his own stubborn naivete as he spurred his horse on. There had been warnings. There had been ample warnings. But he had chosen to believe that Balladine would be respected. Pools of lensed daylight showed the path ahead, where the entry to Grand Gather was now in sight at the end of the big, rising tunnel.

The tunnel ahead was empty, except for a company of Willen’s guards at the arena portal. Just beyond, large, square shapes, surrounded by workers, were slowly moved. Those who had made it past the keep would be there now, and Willen would be setting his trap for the pursuers. It had seemed an excessive thing when they had first discussed it – eight-foot cubes of stone on low rollers, in place to block the portal. Now Colin realized that it would not be enough. The stones would delay the humans, but not stop them. The invaders were simply too many to be held.

Colin glanced back for the first time since passing the keep. Jerem Longslate rode just behind, his bearded face grim beneath his polished helm, and behind him came the Ten.

But they were no longer ten. At a glance, Colin saw that Chock Render and Balam Axethrow were missing. They were dead, then. Only death could separate any member of the Ten from his chieftain.

Abruptly, the chieftain’s tall horse shied and spun half around to lash out with its rear hooves. Colin clung to his saddle and raised his blade, peering around.

There was no one there, just himself and his escort. But the other horses were excited, too, as though they could see an enemy that their riders could not. Colin gave his mount its head and muttered, “Schoen, attack!”

The big horse turned, reared, and lashed out with front hooves, slashing at empty air, its ears laid back. The scream of its battle cry echoed from stone walls, and beneath the sound was another, like scurrying footsteps … like someone scooting away, trying to escape the flailing hooves. And for an instant, two bright orbs, like glowing eyes, turning away. Then there was nothing. Schoen pranced and bristled, the golden hide beneath his white mane quivering. But whatever the horse had seen, or thought it saw, was gone.

“Did you see anyone here?” Colin asked. “Or anything?”

“No, Sire,” Jerem Longslate said, as the others shook their heads. “The horses did, though.”

Behind them, the sounds of pursuit grew. The invaders were in the tunnel, and some were now in sight, rounding the bend a hundred yards back – a howling, kill-crazed torrent of humans filling the big space from wall to wall. There were hundreds of them, and more behind.

“To Grand Gather,” Colin rasped. He spurred Schoen, and the horses thundered to the portal, past the guards there and into the vaulted space of the great assembly hall. Behind them, guards’ slings whistled. There were cries from the charging human mob as thrown missiles scored hits there. Colin Stonetooth drew rein and wheeled, pointing with his bloody sword. “The stones will not hold them! There are too many! Willen!”

Instantly, Willen Ironmaul was there, beside his leader’s horse. “Aye, Sire!”

“Turn the stones, Willen. Face the rollers outward.”

A lethal grin spread across the big dwarf’s face. Willen understood instantly, and the idea pleased him. “Aye, Sire. Workers! To your prys! Turn the stones!”

Spotting Frost Steelbit among the milling crowds nearby, Colin shouted, “Frost! Take charge of the wounded and the weak! Get them out of here, into the concourse. We’ll make a stand there, at the inner gate!” He swung down, and Jerem Longslate and the others also dismounted. The horses were led away, toward the far portal of Grand Gather and the city beyond. There would be no further need of horses now. What must be done would be done afoot.

Wight Anvil’s-Cap, the old delvemaster, appeared at Colin’s side. “Has it come to that, then? Must we close the inner gate?”

“I am afraid we have no choice,” Colin rasped. “This is no barbarian attack. It’s an invasion. Nothing less will keep those people out of Thorin.”

“Reorx help us,” the delvemaster muttered. “No one knows whether that thing will even work. It has never been tried.”

“I know that, Wight. Pray that it does, because if it fails, we’ll be fighting that mob in the streets of Thorin itself.” He turned away, toward the portal. The second of the two huge blocks of stone was just being steadied in place, pointing outward. Beyond, the howling of the human tide was deafening. Arrows were flicking through the opening, between and around the stones. “Willen, is it ready?”

“Ready, Sire.”

“Then let them go and close these doors.”

At Willen Ironmaul’s command, burly dwarves stooped behind the stones, heaved at prybars, and the stones moved. For an instant they seemed to hang suspended in the portal, then they pitched outward and began to roll down the corridor beyond, their rollers rumbling as they picked up speed, twin juggernauts bearing down on the packed masses of humans charging upward.

“Close and bar those doors,” Colin ordered. The oaken gates slammed, dimming the screams from beyond, where tons of polished stone paved trails of carnage through the human ranks. Colin Stonetooth didn’t stop to listen. “Retreat!” he shouted. “To the inner gate!”

By the hundreds dwarves ran, around and across Grand Gather’s arena, some stopping to help the wounded littering the area. The barrage of arrows from the invaders had done damage. Everywhere, people were down. Abruptly, Colin Stonetooth spotted Handil in the crowd, coming toward him against the flow, carrying his drum. Jinna Rockreave was with him, her eyes wide and a web sling clasped in her small fingers.

“I heard, Father,” Handil said. “In the city they say a thousand humans have attacked us.”

“A thousand?” Colin shook his head. “Many thousands, I’d say. Too many to fight off. Thorin must be sealed.” He turned as a resounding crash echoed through the great chamber. The doors from the keep tunnel had burst open, and wild-eyed, howling humans were pouring through. “To the inner gates!” he snapped. “Hurry.”

An arrow whisked past his head and sank into the back of a fleeing stone-mover. Other arrows followed, and Jerem Longslate and his men pressed around the chieftain, shielding him. One of them gasped and fell, a shaft protrading from his exposed side. He had used his shield for the chieftain, not for himself.

“Come, Sire!” Jerem Longslate urged. “There is no time!”

“Come on!” Colin shouted at Handil as the guards hurried him away, their shields at his back.

Handil turned and hesitated. Beside him, Jinna Rockreave spun her sling and released it. The stone – the size of a fist – sang across the arena and took a bearded man full in the face. He fell backward, carrying others with him.

“Jinna, come on!” Handil shouted.

“All right,” the girl nodded. “Just one more …” And then she was on her back on the stone floor, an arrow standing from her breast.

Handil dropped to his knees beside her. “Jinna!”

At the touch of his hands she shuddered and gasped. “Don’t … don’t move me, Handil. The pain …”

With a cry of agony, Handil the Drum crouched over his beloved and raised stricken eyes toward the far portal. His father was there, beckoning to him, and workers were chipping out the stone at each side, where the stops of the inner gate were concealed.

“Handil,” Jinna whispered, “go now. Leave me. You must. The humans …” Gasping with pain, she held out her hand and dropped something into his.

Tears misted his eyes as he saw what it was – an exquisite ring, embedded and twined in the elven style. The gift from Cale Greeneye. Arrows whisked around him, and a thrown axe hummed past his head as he slipped the ring on, then drew its mate from his belt and placed it carefully on Jinna’s finger.

“For as long as we live,” he murmured, gazing into her stricken eyes, seeing the blood that seeped from her nose and mouth. “For as long as we live.”

Humans were rushing toward him now, weapons raised for the kill. In the distance he heard his father’s voice, calling his name, and then a crash like thunder. He glanced around. Where there had been a portal – had always been a portal, opening onto the great concourse of Thorin – now was solid stone, twenty feet thick. The inner gate had worked. Thorin was safe behind a wall of stone that no human could penetrate.

Jinna no longer moved, and he realized that she had stopped breathing. Distractedly, barely aware of the howling tide of murderous humans sweeping down on him, Handil the Drum stood, swung his vibrar under his arm, and stripped away its wraps. An arrow buried itself in his thigh as he drew forth his mallets, but he hardly felt it.

The nearest humans were only yards away now, rushing at him, but when he turned to them, they slowed, stunned at what they saw in his eyes. In that instant, a few of them may have realized that they were looking at their own deaths. Unhurriedly, standing over the body of his beloved, Handil raised his mallets and brought them down, and the Thunderer began to sing.

No Call to Balladine was this, no glad song of the high peaks. The rhythm of the big vibrar was a dirge, and it filled the great hall of Grand Gather with sound so intense that humans reeled back from it, many dropping their weapons to clap hands to their ears.

Another arrow struck Handil, and then another, but they meant nothing to him. The mallets increased their tempo, and the vibrar thundered.

And all around – above where the sun-tunnelled ceiling arched away, around every wall and in every rise and ramp of Grand Gather – hewn stone took up the vibrations and began to disintegrate. The cavern roared and bellowed, and huge chunks of broken stone showered down from above, crushing everyone and everything beneath them. An entire sun-tunnel slipped free of its collar somewhere and plummeted to the arena floor, shattering into bright, piercing shards which flew in all directions. Humans milled and screamed, many turning back the way they had come. But the entryway had collapsed, and there was nowhere to go.

A raging human, crazed by fear, ran at Handil with a raised sword and impaled himself upon the lance of another human trying to get away. An axe struck Handil in the hip, and he fell, then raised himself on one knee, never missing a beat.

The song of the vibrar built upon itself like contained thunders rolling back and back, echoes becoming great choruses of echoes.

“As long as we live,” Handil the Drum muttered to himself, building his beat to a crescendo. And the entire roof of Grand Gather collapsed inward, millions of tons of cold stone filling and forever sealing what was now only a silent tomb.

Clouds of dust and debris rose from the mountainside above Thorin Keep as a chasm opened there. The great monolith called First Sentinel, standing just at the edge of the collapse, teetered and swayed, then disintegrated and fell into the hole, raising more clouds of stone-dust.

And above it all the sun of Krynn approached the zenith of its solstice day.

*

Just as no human had ever guessed the magnitude of Thorin, neither had any human ever known – or even suspected – about the inner gates. Most of the Calnar themselves were only vaguely aware that, suspended unseen in a hall-sized slot above the east portal of Grand Gather, was a gigantic hanging wall of solid granite held in place by cable-braced props. Old Mistral Thrax might have remembered the tremendous task of creating this massive deadfall, had he ever had cause to think about it, but few others beyond the leaders of the Calnar had known it was there. It was plastered over and unseen, and had never been used because once released it was unlikely that it could ever be raised again.

But now, in their last moments, the invaders in Grand Gather had learned of it. And now all those beyond, in Thorin proper, knew of it. Where had stood the door to Grand Gather, now was an impenetrable wall. As Wight Anvil’s-Cap had said, Thorin would never again be the same. The keep, the outer tunnels, even Grand Gather, had always been a facade. Now they – or what was left of them – were cut off forever from the city beneath the crag.

The Calnar had removed themselves from invasion by sealing the only entry that any but themselves knew about. Within Thorin now were only Calnar – except one. Raging and unseen, one walked among them who was human … or had once been human, before encountering a dwarf imbued with wild magic from the Graystone itself.

Grayfen stalked the great concourse of Thorin, unseen as long as he shielded his eyes. Only he, of all the human forces, had got past the inner gate before it came crashing down, and the rage that boiled within him was a burning, insane fire. The dinks had tricked them! Long years of planning and intrigue had come to nothing. He was in Thorin, but not as a conqueror. He was a shadow among those he hated most, trapped with no way out.

The glowing orbs that were his only eyes burned in his head, their presence a pounding pain that never relented. He longed to remove them, even for a few minutes, but without them his magic would not work, and he would be seen and killed.

In his rage he struck out around him. A dozen times in as many minutes he touched some passing dwarf, then did the magic he had learned and watched, unseen, as the dwarf died in agony, clawing at its throat.

But that only tired him, and did no good. He could not kill them all.

The magic! He knew there was more that it would do, more than he had learned. Too often, when he had tried to devise spells, they had turned on him with painful results. Yet now, in his rage, he knew there was a thing he could do, and the magic itself seemed to tell him how. Revenge! The magic whispered it. Revenge upon Colin Stonetooth, whose fault it was that he was trapped.

The rage boiled and coalesced within him and became arcane words that molded themselves to his tongue. “In morit deis Calnaris,” he whispered. “Refeist ot atium dactas ot destis!”

As though the magic itself instructed him, he spoke the spell and knew what it meant. To the leader of the dwarves, exile. To his seed, death!

It was all he could do. Yet, somewhere ahead must lie the fabulous treasure that everyone knew the dwarves had. The subterranean city was far bigger than he had suspected, and far brighter. The radiance of the place seemed to increase with each passing second, and to eyes that could not close, that could never not see, it was intensely painful. And the place was incredibly hot. He felt as though he were in a furnace. Despite the pain, he went toward the brightness. That must be where the treasure was.

Most of the dwarves he saw now were hurrying in the other direction, and as he emerged into a great, circular chamber filled with blinding light, the only other creature there was a hobbling, ancient-looking dwarf with a crutch, who glanced his way and then stopped to stare. Grayfen shielded his eyes and went on. Just ahead, in the center of the chamber, stood a shaft of brilliant light. It seemed to come out of the floor, or from above, and where it stood the floor ended at a precipitous pit.

The treasure, he thought. The treasure of the dinks! It must be there! Agonized by brilliant light, tortured by intense heat, Grayfen approached to the very lip of the pit and heard a sound. He turned to see the old dwarf with the crutch directly behind him.

“The dream was real,” the ancient creature hissed. “You are the one Fishtaker showed me. You are the enemy!”

“You see me?” Grayfen gasped.

“As clearly as though you were alive,” the dwarf said.

“I am alive,” Grayfen snapped, starting to raise his hand. “It is you who are …”

The motion was never completed. More quickly than the man could have believed, the old dwarf raised his crutch and heaved it like a javelin. The foot of it thudded into the mage’s belly with such force that it doubled him over. Hard old hands clawed at his face, and suddenly he was blind. His eyes were gone, clenched in the dwarf’s hands.

The mage lashed out, searching, and took one step back … into searing nothingness. His scream as he disappeared into the shaft of light was drowned by a hum of vibrance as the sun of Krynn reached zenith above the central light-shaft of Thorin, and fireflash occurred – the fireflash of Balladine.

Mistral Thrax threw himself aside, face down, his smoking cloak shielding him from the instant of searing heat. When he got to his feet again, staggering, most of his beard was burned away, his clothing smoldered, and he felt as though he were one solid blister. But he opened his hands and stared at what they held. The eyes of Grayfen had been red, glowing orbs. Now in the old hands of Mistral Thrax lay a pair of black spheres, like marbles made of jet. But beneath them, on his palms, were red marks – like drawings of a fishing spear, done in glowing red.

Staggering, he picked up his crutch and turned away, not looking back at the shaft of brilliance that hummed happily now from mountaintop to the magma pit below.

He had things to do. First, a mug of cold ale at Lobard’s, then he must find Colin Stonetooth and tell him of the portent of his dream – of seeking Everbardin, and of Kal-Thax being to the west.

Chapter 11

THE EXILES

Snowcaps lay heavy upon the Khalkist peaks when Colin Stonetooth led his procession down from the warren ports and around the towering bulk of the mountain to the devastated slopes that once had been the proud face of Thorin. Ogres looked down from the heights as the long line passed below, and growled impatiently. But no ogre cared to confront such a force as this – more than a thousand determined dwarves, some mounted on the great Calnar horses and some afoot, but all heavily armed and packed for travel.

Not in even the longest memory had there been such a sight, anywhere on Krynn. Humans migrated constantly – small, nomadic bands roaming here and there – as did many of the other races. But a migration of dwarves was a thing none of them had ever seen before, and even the ogres in the cold heights shook their heads in wonder at the sight of a tribe of dwarves on the move.

On the slope above the sinkhole that had once been the mountain roof of Grand Gather, Colin Stonetooth halted them for a last look at the place that had been their home for as long as they could remember. Where once had been clean, wind-shaped mountainside, now there was the collapsed pit, its sides a deep cone of rockslide leading to the entombed depths below. Beyond, at the lower end of the hole, was the stub of the First Sentinel, a broken shaft of stone standing in its own rubble. And farther down, a stark silhouette against the umbers and golds of the valleys below, was the roof of the keep, still littered with the drying bones of human savages … mute testimony to the silent death within.

The forces of Sith Kilane – at least a few of them – had lasted for weeks, imprisoned in the keep. Some had made it to the roof, to be picked off by dwarven marksmen with slings. Some had shouted and pleaded from the balconies until sling-stones or javelins brought them down, and some – after days of suffering – had jumped. The remainder of the ill-fated invasion forces had died of thirst or starvation, their corpses still within, ignored by the dwarves. The keep remained sealed, and maybe it always would.

Above Thorin, Colin Stonetooth took a last, sad look out over the lands he had ruled, then leaned from his saddle to clasp the hard hand of his second son, Tolon Farsight. “You are Chieftain of the Calnar now,” he said, “by your own choice and the choice of those who remain here with you. I wish you hot forges and good trade.”

“And to you, Father.” Tolon nodded. “Wherever the roads take you. May you find your Kal-Thax, and may the majesty of the Calnar make of it a fine nation.”

“Not Calnar,” Colin muttered, looking away. “The Calnar are of Thorin. You are the Calnar now. We will take another name, for other places.”

“Oh? What name?”

“What our human neighbors – when they were neighbors – called us, because of where we lived. The Highest. We will take that name with us, Tolon. From this day, those of us who seek Kal-Thax are the Hylar.”

“Hylar.” Tolon thought it over and nodded. “A good name. May it serve you well, Father. May you find the way.”

Colin tipped his head, indicating Cale Greeneye, who sat nearby in the saddle of his great horse, Piquin. Cale and his scouts had returned a few days after the battle of Thorin. They had returned to a place very different from the Thorin they left.

“Your brother will lead us safely to the plains,” Colin told Tolon. “He has scouted that far and will scout for us beyond, as we travel. Ah, don’t look so downcast!” The old chieftain shook his head. “You know I must make this journey, my son. There is no place here for a former chieftain, and now it is your turn. Guide your people well and wisely.”

“All because of an old dwarf’s dream,” Tolon muttered.

“Not only that,” Colin said. “I failed in my judgement. I trusted friends and was blind to enemies. You were right, Tolon, and I was wrong. A chieftain cannot fail his people to such an extreme and remain chieftain. The laws apply to all, and the law decrees exile. I choose to make my exile a quest for prophesy, and those who follow me do so of their own free will.

“Those of us who go from here, Tolon,” the old chief added, “have lost Everbardin in Thorin. We must find it elsewhere, if we find it at all.” Once more he clasped Tolon’s hand, then reined Schoen around and trotted away, downhill toward the far valleys and the Suncradles which rose beyond. With a wave at Tolon, Cale Greeneye reined after him, followed by Jerem Longslate and the Ten, which included several new members who had been chosen to replace the brave dwarves who had died defending their chieftain.

Willen Ironmaul directed his guard companies to the flanks, then paused to gaze at Tolon the Muse. “Consider Sheen Barbit for your guard captain, Tolon,” he suggested. “He is the best of those who choose to remain. Will you try to reopen trade with Golash and Chandera?”

“Trade, yes,” Tolon said. “But not Balladine. The Calnar will never again forget that humans are savages, no matter how friendly they appear.”

“Live long and well, Tolon Farsight,” Willen said, formally, then wheeled away.

Beside him, on her own mount, Tera Sharn glanced back at her brother. They had said their goodbyes earlier in private, for each knew the parting would be forever. Tera nodded and turned to look ahead.

Skirting the edge of the great sinkhole, Colin Stonetooth and the Ten in the lead, the people who were now Hylar began their journey. Three and five abreast, the procession was more than two miles long.

Among them were drummers, and as the first of these came abreast of the sinkhole he loosed his vibrar and began a slow, steady beat – a dirge, or a salute. Then others behind him joined in, and, as the procession crept past the sinkhole, the mountains echoed the steady, minor-key thunders of great drums saying a last farewell to the greatest drummer of them all. For the Hylar, as for the Calnar, there would always be the memory of Handil the Drum.

The procession wound downward, past the death-stink of the silent keep and out onto the war-littered terraces. On a hillside in the distance, a little band of humans raised their hands in salute, then turned away, and Colin Stonetooth knew that Garr Lanfel, the Prince of Golash, had made a final gesture in honor of a friendship that would never be again.

Down the terraces, toward the valleys of the Hammersong and the Bone, the new clan of the Hylar marched to the sound of its drums, eyes raised to the Suncradles and the distances beyond.

Never once did Colin Stonetooth turn to look back at what had been Thorin-Everbardin. But some did, and their whispers were bittersweet on the winds.

“Thoradin,” they muttered. For the people who were now Hylar, Thorin was gone. What remained was Thoradin – a memory of the past.

Part II

THE TRIBES OF KAL-THAX

The Land of Kal-Thax

Kharolis Mountains

Century of Wind

Decade of Oak

Year of Brass

Chapter 12

LAND OF CONFLICT

The smoke of a hundred morning fires hazed the early autumn air above the eastern foothills of the Kharolis Mountains. As far as the eye could see, peering eastward from the slopes beyond, little wisps of smoke rose to the north and south, a solid crescent of smoke that rose skyward, then feathered on the breeze to lie like low clouds in the distance.

For weeks it had been like this. Hardly a day passed without sign of the bands of human wanderers who pressed westward, across the plains of central Ansalon until they came to the rising spires of the Kharolis Mountains. And always, then, they pushed toward the great pass below Cloudseeker Peak, and their camp smoke hazed the foothills below. Slide Tolec had learned to predict when the next numan assault would come simply by the smoke over the foothills.

Except for a few remote camps of ogres and goblins, the people out there were a mix of human-kind. Most of them were refugees and wanderers, bands and whole tribes driven westward by the spread of the dragon wars far to the east. They sought places to rest, places to hide, places to resettle, but they were not welcomed in the hills and plains east of the mountains. That was part of the far-reaching realm of Ergoth, and the Ergothians didn’t want hordes of strangers crowding into their land. Thus the knights and armed bands of wardens from Ergoth pushed the travelers onward, toward the mountains.

Refugees and displaced tribes – many of them he had seen at close quarters, when they came up the slopes only to be driven back by dwarves – appeared harmless enough, except for being human. The dwarves of Kal-Thax had learned long ago what happened when humans were allowed to scatter through these mountains. In certain seasons and in certain places – fertile valleys here and there – they managed to survive, for a time. They would spread and multiply. But then the food supplies and the shelter suitable for humans would be too little. The seasons would change and there would be famine, and then the raiding and the looting of the Einar – the dwarves – would begin.

Slide had thought about the harsh sanctions the dwarves had created. No other races were welcome in Kal-Thax. Kal-Thax was for the Einar. Kal-Thax was for dwarves and no one else. Like every dwarf in Kal-Thax, Slide agreed that it was a necessary law, especially where humans were concerned. If humans could just pass through, some had reasoned, maybe it would not be necessary. But humans did not “pass through.” They would come in, if allowed, and they would spread and colonize, and the old troubles would begin again.

A shadow fell across the ledge where Slide squatted, and a wide-shouldered, bandy-legged figure draped in furs scrambled down from the ledges above to drop lithely – and almost soundlessly – beside him. Slide scowled behind his mesh faceplate. It was only one of the many unnerving habits of Glome the Assassin, this penchant for showing up silently and always unexpected. Slide said nothing, though. Those foolhardy enough to offend Glome the Assassin sometimes wound up dead.

For a second, Glome crouched beside Slide Tolec, studying him with quick, close-set eyes beneath a heavy brow that seemed to radiate the force of his presence and the strength of his arms. Then he turned and peered off into the distance, toward the plains where the smoke mounted from alien fires. Only for a moment did he scan the human camps. Turning to his right, he shaded his eyes to look off southward across the expanse of the high meadows which were the crest of a mighty shoulder of Cloudseeker Mountain. In that direction too, there was smoke – not as much as on the distant plains, but nearer by miles. A camp was there, and there were hints of movement and bright colors.

Glome pointed. “Daewar,” he growled. “They camp on Theiwar territory.”

“They’ve been there for a week.” Slide shrugged. “They are here to help us repel the outsiders. Beyond them are Vog Ironface and the Daergar, as well.”

“Forget about the humans,” Glome growled. “I think it is time we dealt with the Daewar. We have wasted too much time.”

Without another word, Glome turned and disappeared into the caves behind the ledge – silently, as usual.

Slide shivered slightly. Even now, with thousands of human invaders massing at the foot of the mountains, Glome still dwelt on his primary ambition, to wage war against the Daewar.

Or was that his real ambition, Slide wondered, to fight the Daewar? Or was it just a means toward some greater, darker ambition lying within the assassin’s mind?

No one really knew where Glome had come from. Somewhere in Kal-Thax, of course, from one or another of the many little bands or villages of the widespread Einar, but no one knew exactly where. Glome had not been Theiwar originally. He had just appeared one day, shortly before the time the old chieftain, Crouch Redfire, disappeared.

No one knew what had become of Crouch Redfire, but Glome had walked into the home lairs of the Theiwar and established himself immediately as a leader, through bullying, threats, and – many suspected – outright murder in several cases. He had an uncanny knack for seeking out all the malcontents in the tribe and getting them to accept his lead. Within a very short time, Glome had a substantial following among the Theiwar. Some had thought that Glome intended to take over as chieftain, but the succession had already been claimed by Twist Cutshank and – surprisingly – Glome had backed him against challengers. Twist Cutshank was a strong, brutal person – not overly smart, but crafty in his way. Now Twist was chieftain, and Glome was his chief advisor, and Slide Tolec wondered what Glome’s ambitions really were. He had the feeling that they went far beyond merely being chieftain of the thane of Theiwar.

Slide turned his gaze eastward again, toward the distant smoke. Always, outsiders had come in the warm seasons – humans and others – trying to enter the closed land of Kal-Thax. But never had he seen so many.

Refugees from distant wars – yet among them would be the raiders and the looters, humans who found in the chaos of war the excuse and the opportunity to take what they could get.

And there were other camps out there, too, other smoke apart from the human crescent facing the pass. Far north, barely visible, was smoke from the dark, oily fires of what might be a goblin encampment. And nearer at hand, on high ridges aside from the human camps, were the little tendrils of what might be ogre fires.

Slide Tolec felt little sympathy for any of them. They did not belong in Kal-Thax.

Squatting beneath the stone overhang that shaded the Theiwar outpost caves, Slide peered outward, estimating the fires, and idly fingered the blade at his side. The numbers were increasing out there. Soon they would come, some of them at least, trying once again to penetrate the mountain lands.

There were so many this year! Slide felt that maybe it was well that the Daewar had come – from their own lairs far north on the hidden face of Sky’s End Mountain – to aid in the defense. Slide had no more use for the arrogant, jovial “gold-molders” than did any other Theiwar. The Daewar were upstarts – only within the past century had they formed a thane – and yet they seemed to thrive. And they didn’t hesitate to display their success. Every Daewar he had ever seen wore a fortune in the finest of armor and the gaudiest of attire.

And they could fight! While the Theiwar were expert at sabotage and ambush, and while none could match the dark-sighted Daergar in a night attack, few would dare to challenge the gold-molders in direct battle. The old Theiwar chief, Crouch Redfire, had badly weakened the Theiwar when he tested them by sending them into Daewar territory. The Daewar captain, Gem Bluesleeve, and his “Golden Hammer” elite troops had decimated the Theiwar raiders.

The term “gold-molder” was intended as an insult – implying that the Daewar were as soft and malleable as the bright metal that was the color of their hair and beards, and which they favored for ornamentation. But only an idiot or a suicide would so insult a Daewar to his face.

Though Slide resented the brightly clad sun people, now, seeing the smoke of the human campfires above the foothills, he was glad that the Daewar were here, and that they were part of the treaty of exclusion which kept Kal-Thax closed to aliens.

From the shadows behind him a deep voice rasped, “Slide! Have you gone to sleep there? What do you see?”

Scowling, Slide turned slightly to glance back into the depths. “I’m looking at what you told me to look at, … Sire. The outsiders are massing more and more in the foothills. They will be coming soon.”

“Soon?” Twist Cutshank’s voice mocked him. “Soon? What does ‘soon’ mean? This morning? Today? Next month?”

Slide stifled a sigh of disgust. How did the chieftain of the Theiwar expect him to read the minds of humans? “Today, maybe,” he answered. “There are at least a hundred fires out there now. They’ll have to move soon or starve.”

“A hundred fires?” He heard the stomp of heavy boots and knew that the chieftain and others wanted to see for themselves. “All together?”

“No, they’re scattered over many miles. But they’ve discovered now that they can’t pass the gorge, and the cliffs of Shalomar block them to the south, so they are massing below the pass. Like they always do, except now there are many more.”

As Twist Cutshank emerged onto the shelf, adjusting his mesh faceplate over craggy, sullen features, Slide moved aside for him, as people usually did. Twist Cutshank was not tall – he stood barely more than four feet high – but he was massive, with huge shoulders and almost no neck at all. His arms were as thick and knotty as the boles of mountain pines, and at least as long as his stubby, powerful legs.

“Fugitives,” he rumbled, then shielded his eyes against the morning sun to peer into the distance. “Rust!” he said. “There must be thousands of them!”

“I told you,” Slide Tolec muttered, then raised his voice. “They’ll be coming soon, up the valley.”

That was the one certainty, here in the eastern border lands of Kal-Thax. Intruders, when they came, would push westward across the foothills and into the wide, climbing valley that pointed toward the crest of Cloudseeker Mountain. It was the route they always followed. The way to Kal-Thax from the east was like a funnel. Across the plains of eastern Ergoth, migrants held to the narrowing “corridor” of wild lands, avoiding the northerly routes which led to the human city of Xak Tsaroth, where thieves and slavers waited to take their toll, and avoiding the ice barrens to the south. From the wilds, they slipped into the settled regions and were harried there by knights and companies of armed wardens, protecting the villages.

Reaching the foothills, the wanderers quickly found that the Grand Gorge was impassable to humans, and the Cliffs of Shalomar were unscalable by humans. So they set their eyes on the three crags atop Cloudseeker – those massive, upright fangs of stone that the dwarves called the Windweavers – and entered the narrowing valley that was their only route. And there, for more years than even the dwarves could remember, they were attacked and driven away or killed.

It was the only thing that every thane, tribe, and band of dwarves in Kal-Thax agreed on: Kal-Thax was closed to outside races and must remain so.

The “funnel” led directly into the territory of the Theiwar and was the reason that the Theiwar had become the first thane – or organized, land-holding nation – in Kal-Thax. Originally just small tribes of Einar, the Theiwar were cliff-dwelling people and had found fine profits in waylaying the humans and others who occasionally wandered into these mountains. Ambush, slaughter, and looting of outsiders had become a major industry in times past, and Thane Theiwar had profited from it.

Most travelers from the bog-lands and the plains never realized they had entered Kal-Thax until they were many miles up the rugged path among the foothills, and none realized that the path toward the three crags was a trap. Just below Galefang, the largest of the Windweavers, the path veered southward between high walls, directly into the canyon below the Theiwar caves. By the dozens and the hundreds, strangers had died there, and the Theiwar had looted and disposed of their bodies.

But it was different now. This time the intruders were a massive force, and the Theiwar did not have the field to themselves. The Daewar had come, arrogant as always, bypassing the Theiwar encampment without so much as a by-your-leave for trespassing on Theiwar grounds, and now were encamped right out on the promontory – a shoulder of the mountain, in the middle of the pass – as though to take charge of all defenses. A few miles beyond the Daewar camp, Slide knew, were hordes of grim, squinting Daergar, hiding their faces from the bright sunlight that hurt their dark-seeker eyes. They had come from their dimly lit tunnels and their precious mines to join in the defense of Kal-Thax. Here and there also were bands of the wild, erratic Klar, brandishing their bludgeons and waiting for the chance to bash a few human skulls.

In all, it was a grim and deadly array of dwarven fighters, none of the groups on very good terms with any of the others, but all determined that outsiders would not enter the mountain realm.

Slide wondered, though silently, what kind of fighting force they all might be if they could for once get together and act in unison. It was a foolish notion. Never in all the centuries since the Theiwar – and then the Daewar and Daergar and, to some extent, even the Klar – had become organized thanes, never had they acted in unison on any issue except the pact to keep aliens out.

In the distance to the east, the smoke of the human camps was trailing away on the breeze, and Slide, peering through his mesh faceplate, saw the beginnings of movement there. It was what he had expected. Someone in the foothills had taken charge, and now the humans – some of them at least – were on the move, heading up the pass.

He squinted, and Brule Vaportongue edged up beside him, his face hidden by the Daergar mask he wore. Brule was half Daergar and shunned the daylight.

“What do you see?” Brule asked. “Are they coming?”

“They’re coming.” Slide nodded. “By evening, the Daewar out there will be up to their eyeballs in humans.”

“The gold-molders have placed themselves to take the first assault,” Brule rasped. “So let them take it. We can attack from the flank, after they’ve slowed them down.”

To one side, Glome the Assassin turned and spat, “Shut up over there. We have better things to think about than fighting humans.” He turned back to Twist Cutshank, and all the rest turned to listen.

“The time is here to deal with the Daewar,” Glome told the chieftain. “My spies have been on the slopes of Sky’s End, as I told you. The citadel there is poorly guarded. The gold-molders are spending all their time delving into the mountain behind their fortifications. The spies believe they are expanding their city, deeper into the mountain.”

“They can still fight,” Twist Cutshank rumbled. “Don’t forget the beating we took last time we tried an attack, Glome.”

“That?” Glome growled. “That was no attack. That was a fiasco. Your old chieftain, Crouch Redfire, was an idiot, trying to raid Daebardin when Olim Goldbuckle and all his troops were there.”

“So what makes it different now?” Twist glared. “A Daewar patrol on the defense line?”

Glome pointed southward, toward the Daewar camp. “Patrol? That is no mere patrol out there. I got close and looked around. That is Goldbuckle himself, with Gem Bluesleeve and most of his army. That isn’t a hundred or so Daewar out there. That is a thousand or more – right out in the open, on Theiwar territory.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Twist stared at Glome. “That we withdraw and go loot Daebardin while their prince is away?”

“More than that,” Glome said. “First let them get bloodied by the humans. Let the Daewar take the brunt of today’s assault – and tomorrow’s, if there is one. Then, when Goldbuckle is weak, we can easily finish him off. After that, nothing stands between us and the treasures of Daebardin.”

“Treasures none of us have ever seen,” Twist pointed out. “We’re not even sure they have treasures.”

“Of course they have treasures!” Glome snapped. “Look at them! Every Daewar you ever saw wears a fortune in armor alone. And if they didn’t have treasure, why would they have been delving all these years over on Sky’s End? The rubble heaps below their citadel are enormous! They must be building an entire city under that mountain. Why would they do that, except to fortify, to protect vast treasures?”

“I’d like to see that undermountain city,” Twist Cutshank admitted. “Treasures, huh? Maybe so.”

“That place must be huge by now,” Glome nodded. “A fortress for a king, possibly?”

“King? There are no kings in Kal-Thax!”

“But maybe Olim Goldbuckle wants to be one,” Glome purred. “Have you thought about that? About the possibility of bowing before a bloody Daewar? Maybe that is why the gold-molders dig. Maybe when they have their fortress completed they intend to conquer all the thanes. Would you enjoy having that rusty gold-molder’s foot on your neck, Twist Cutshank?” Glome turned, looking at the others. There were dozens of Theiwar on the ledge now. “Would any Theiwar willingly bow to a Daewar king?” he asked. “I say Olim Goldbuckle intends to be king of Kal-Thax, and if we want to stop him, we must strike first!”

It was a powerful argument, and none could deny it. Slide Tolec’s brows lowered, though, as another thought crossed his mind. Maybe someone in Kal-Thax did want to become king. But was it the prince of the Daewar? Or was it, just possibly, someone else?

Twist Cutshank was gazing at Glome. “Are you suggesting we betray a defense, Glome?” he asked. “That would be breaking the pact.”

“We won’t let humans in,” Glome explained. “We’ll just let the Daewar do all the fighting.”

“And if the humans get past them?”

“Then we will turn them back. But either way, this may be our chance to be rid of Olim Goldbuckle.”

“What of the Daergar?”

“What of them?” Glome snorted. “Vog Ironface knows the Daewar threat as well as we do. The Daergar will join us when they see what we are doing.”

Slide Tolec had his doubts about that. The treaty of the thanes was a sacred thing, and the Daergar supported it loyally. It was in their best interests. Should outsiders settle within the mountains of Kal-Thax, the first prizes they would seek would be the Daergar mines.

Still, there was a bond of sorts between the Theiwar and the Daergar. Many times in the past, they had fought each other. But the rise of the powerful, populous Daewar to the north, in their stronghold on Sky’s End, had brought a tenuous peace between Theiwar and Daergar. Each recognized a more dangerous enemy, and hostility between the cliff-cave people and the dark-dwellers was set aside for an uneasy alliance, and for trade. The Theiwar mined the steel-hardening black stone of Cloudseeker’s lower slopes, and in return acquired the swift, dark-metal Daergar weapons, which most of them preferred over anything the Theiwar crafters could forge.

Twist Cutshank squinted out across the bright, high lands, toward the climbing foothills to the east. The smoke had diminished in the distance, but now everyone could see the movement of massed humans pouring over the far crests. Even at such a distance, sunlight glinted on the steel and bronze of weapons. After a time, the Theiwar chieftain hissed, “There are horsemen leading them!”

Slide Tolec’s eyes watered as he tried to make out details in the distance. There were horsemen there – hundreds of them, it seemed, and they were of a type he had seen before. “Cobar!” he said. “The raiders from the northern plains.”

“Very well,” Twist Cutshank decided. “It shall be as Glome says. Instead of flanking the Daewar positions, we hold back. Let the gold-molders take the full brunt of the attack. Maybe the humans will deal with the Daewar for us … but if any get through, then we and the Daergar must turn them back.”

Chapter 13

THE DEFENDERS

Olim Goldbuckle knew very well the threat that Kal-Thax faced in this season of massive migrations. For a month, his Daewar scouts had surveyed the border slopes as more and more humans – and not a few ogres and goblins – arrived there, some fleeing the dragon war in the east, others taking advantage of the chaos to seek new lands or treasures.

The Daewar prince had huddled with his advisors as the reports came in, assessing what was happening in the human realms beyond Kal-Thax and what it meant for the dwarves. It seemed that displaced people by the thousands or tens of thousands were spilling across the wide, unguardable eastern borders of the human realm of Ergoth and migrating westward toward the sparsely settled southern hills which bordered on the mountain barrier of Kal-Thax. Many of them, the dwarves assumed, would be caught by the patrols of the overlords of the human city of Xak Tsaroth and sold into slavery – either there, or transported to the distant barbarian lands of Istar by trade caravans.

But others – especially the wily Cobar, Sandrunners, and Sackmen of the northern plains – would know about Xak Tsaroth and avoid it, swinging southward through the hills. The Daewar spies confirmed this. By far the most dangerous of the human masses streaming across Ergoth – harried and herded by the knights and by companies of armed citizens – were those closing in on the funnel pass east of Cloudseeker Peak.

Traditionally that was Theiwar territory, and the Theiwar had dealt with outsiders penetrating the borders there. At times they were aided by the Daergar, protecting their mining areas. But now, Olim Goldbuckle knew, the force of the human numbers was far more than the primitive Theiwar – or even the dour, crafty Daergar – could counter.

“The humans must be stopped before they reach Cloudseeker,” the prince of the Daewar told his captain, Gem Bluesleeve. “We are bound by the pact of Kal-Thax to assist our neighbors in the defense of the realm.”

“Especially of Cloudseeker.” Gem nodded, his eyes twinkling.

“Most especially of Cloudseeker,” Olim agreed. “You might say we have a deep interest there.” He chuckled. “Those Theiwar! They claim their mountain and cling to their cliffs, never wondering what might lie beneath their feet. What a waste, if such marvels were to go unused. How goes the delving?”

“Slate Coldsheet estimates another month before we break through into the caverns Urkhan found,” Gem told him. “But you know how the delvemaster is. Always conservative. If he says a month, we might be there in a week.”

“So near,” Olim breathed. “Years of tunneling, Gem. It would be tragic to come so close and then lose everything because the Theiwar failed to hold back a bunch of humans. The Theiwar aren’t inclined to explore, Gem, but humans are. They must be stopped. Get the army ready to move, all except the home guard. We are going to the front passes to help our neighbors keep intruders away.”

“That’s Theiwar territory,” Gem reminded his prince. “They might not appreciate the Daewar army showing up there.”

“We shall try not to be too noticeable,” Olim said. “Possibly we can make many seem like few. But either way, I don’t intend to ask Twist Cutshank’s permission to evoke the Pact of Kal-Thax. It is our right … and our duty.”

So, now, on a bright autumn day, most of the Daewar army was spread along the center rise of the high promontory above the funnel pass, as thousands of human marauders swarmed up the slopes toward them. The promontory was a vast, high meadow flanked by jutting cliffs and broken steeps that narrowed, closing in as the elevation rose toward the level crest that was a jutting shoulder of great Cloudseeker, which stood in the distance behind like a gigantic, three-horned head draped in a sloping cowl.

From the moment the humans – still tiny with distance – began their drive up the pass, it had been apparent that they were led by swarms of riders, roughly clad, fierce-looking men who pummeled their dark horses as they toiled up the grade toward the promontory. There were hundreds of them, and beyond and around them came footmen – a motley assemblage of men from many lands, all with one thing in mind. Their reasons may have been many and varied, but they came on grimly, all determined to break the blockade of Kal-Thax and enter the mountains beyond the midlands.

Gem Bluesleeve watched curiously as the throng came nearer, shading his eyes with the upturned visor of his gold-embossed helmet. It was not the first time he had seen humans making for Kal-Thax. Many times, over the years, Daewar patrols had watched as Theiwar ambushers waylaid travelers coming from the eastern lands. At times, when the groups of trespassers were large, Daewar had even joined in the defense to throw them back. And there had been times when Daewar had even intervened before an ambush, when it was obvious that the interlopers were only poor travelers, lost or outcast, whose only real crime was being in the wrong place.

Some among the Theiwar had fumed and threatened each time a Daewar unit interfered, and there were hard feelings between the thanes because of it. But the Daewar had paid little attention. To the Theiwar, slaughter and looting of trespassers might be a thriving business. But to most Daewar, murder was senseless and embarrassing if there was nothing to be gained by it and if the intruders could be turned away with words.

The mass of humanity coming up the pass now, though, was nothing like the little groups and bands of travelers of past years. This was a massive raid, with the look of a full-scale assault led by mounted looters. Gem stepped to his prince’s side to point out the spreading, tactical maneuvering of the climbing humans.

“These are not here by accident,” he said. “Those horsemen, in the lead, are men of the Cobar plains. The Cobar do not just wander about, as do some tribes. The Cobar are raiders and looters.”

“Mounted intruders,” Olim Goldbuckle mused. “Has there ever been a mounted attack before?”

“Not that I’ve heard of,” Gem admitted. “Many humans have horses, but these mountains are not horse country. Not even the knights of Ergoth would try to enter here on horseback.”

“And yet the Cobar do,” Olim noted. “What do you make of that?”

“They know we’re here.” Gem shrugged. “Those other people with them may intend to invade Kal-Thax and carve out human kingdoms. But the Cobar do not intend to settle here. They come only to raid, to pillage, and then to return to their plains.”

“It will be difficult, fighting horsemen on this level ground,” Olim said.

“Then let’s not meet them here,” Gem suggested. “Let’s go out and meet them on the slopes. If I’m to face horsemen, I’d prefer to have the uphill advantage.”

Olim gazed around, studying the terrain. “The pass is wider over there,” he pointed out. “We will be spread thin. But then, we are not alone.” He gazed northward, at the craggy cliffs which were the Theiwar border camps. “Flash signals to Twist Cutshank of the Theiwar,” he said, “and to Vog Ironface of the Daergar. Signal my greetings and say that we will hold the middle pass. Ask that they position themselves on our forward flanks, the Theiwar to the north and the Daergar to the south. Among us, we should be able to persuade the humans that they are not wanted in Kal-Thax.”

The signals were flashed. Daewar “callers” were positioned on pinnacles of stone using mirrors of polished brass to catch and relay the sunlight in common code. A response and agreement came from the south, from the Daergar placements under the steeps there, but there was no answer from the Theiwar. When his callers reported this to Gem Bluesleeve, he passed it on to Olim Goldbuckle. “There is no question the signal was seen, Sire,” he assured the prince. “With a high sun, and the air clear, the flashes are unmistakable.”

“Twist Cutshank is sulking,” Goldbuckle decided. “He is probably miffed that we came onto his territory without his invitation.”

“But can we count on them to do their part?” Gem asked, worried.

“We’ll have to,” the prince said. “He has seen what is coming, and, savage or not, he knows what it will take to hold this pass. To fail would be to break the Pact of Kal-Thax, and even Twist Cutshank wouldn’t do that.”

With the sun high overhead, the Daewar army broke camp and moved out, cresting the promontory in plain view of the oncoming, quickly spreading human force. In their glistening armor and bright cloaks, the Daewar were an impressive display of presence atop the long rise, and there was visible hesitation among the bands of footmen climbing among the mounted Cobar horsemen. But not for long. The Cobar rode among them, swinging whips and the flats of blades, and the advance resumed.

By the time the sun was above Sky’s End to the north, the human force was less than half a mile away and could be seen clearly. Most of the humans were on foot – a motley assortment of men from many tribes and homelands, clothed in whatever garb they had brought or had found in their wanderings. The weapons they carried ranged from staffs and cudgels to every kind of blade, and their shields and armor were as varied as their clothing. Some had metal shields and bits of metal armor. Far more wore heavy, studded leathers and even whole furs of various animals. There were shields of braced hardwood, shields woven of reeds, and shields of tanned hide stretched over wooden frames. To the finely equipped Daewar, they wouldn’t have seemed especially dangerous – except that there were thousands of them.

The riders were a different story. As Gem had said, the Cobar were a fierce people, and their raiders knew how to fight. They handled their horses expertly, and the weapons they carried – slim lances, curved swords, and dagger-studded fighting shields – looked deadly.

At Gem’s orders, the Daewar spread into a long, double line along the crest of the promontory. It was a well-tested Daewar strategy for defense. Spreading from center, the dwarves took positions every ten yards, two defenders at each station, one kneeling behind his shield with sling and hammer at hand, the second a step forward and to one side, shield high and sword in hand. At ten-yard intervals, with sling-stones to cover the gaps, the defense was virtually a wall. And, faced with horses, Gem had added an extra touch. Each station was equipped with cable and a throw-net.

When the lead humans were less than a hundred yards away, slowing for assembly, Olim Goldbuckle stepped forward and raised an imperious hand. “You have crossed into the land of Kal-Thax!” he called. “Entry here is forbidden! Turn around and go away!”

For a moment there was no answer, then a Cobar horseman with owl feathers adorning his helmet stepped his mount forward. “I claim that one’s armor!” he shouted, pointing at Olim. “See how pretty he looks, like a shiny little toy person! And that cloak, with the flower designs, I’ll take it, too!”

Laughter arose from the ranks of his followers, and others took up the cry, looking along the line of dwarves, picking out and claiming various weapons, bits of armor, and personal gear, shouting taunts and derision. Stolidly, the prince of the Daewar stood his ground until the noise died away. Then he called, “You have had your warning! Kal-Thax is closed to you! There is nothing here for you except defeat and death!”

Something in the dwarf’s tone made Owl Feathers hesitate. He had never fought dwarves before. They didn’t look very dangerous to him, but he had heard they could be full of surprises. Turning, he gave quick orders to the nearest riders and waited while they were passed along. Then he raised his sword, glanced each way along the line of his men, and slashed it forward.

Even on the steep grade, the Cobar horses were quick. From a standstill, they surged into a pounding charge in a spearpoint formation that flashed toward the center of the Daewar line. Fifty yards now separated them, then forty and thirty, and abruptly all of the Cobar riders sheathed their swords and unslung their riding lances as they bore down on the waiting dwarves. Behind them, the charging human footmen were a howling mob, brandishing their weapons as they ran.

The Cobar charge closed to twenty yards, then fifteen, and the riders raised their lances. Short, sturdy spears with iron heads, the lances came up, held level, then shot forward as the riders flung them in unison directly at each pair of dwarven guards ahead of them. And as the spears flew, the riders hauled on their reins, wheeled their horses, and raced off at right angles to right and left, veering back to circle around the mobs of charging footmen.

Thrown spears clanged and thudded against dwarven shields, a ringing tattoo of metal on metal that echoed from the cliffs and the distant peaks. Most were deflected, but here and there a spear got through and a Daewar guardsman reeled backward, impaled.

“Slings!” Gem Bluesleeve shouted. From the long Daewar line, deadly stones shot out, driven by humming slings, but the targets they found were not the mounted raiders. Instead, they crashed into the leading wave of footmen, mowing them down as a scythe mows standing grain. The riders were away by then, circling around behind the footmen to drive them forward into the dwarven lines.

One wave of sling-stones did its work, then another, and then the Daewar found themselves hand to hand with thousands of howling, slashing humans, some attacking fiercely, some just trying to get through, away from the mounted demons behind them.

The Daewar line wavered from the sheer force of the attack. But minute by minute it held, and then the tide of battle began to turn. The Daewar line surged outward, each pair defending and countering, moving carefully over the fallen bodies of human attackers – and of dwarves. As the line bowed forward it opened, and Gem Bluesleeve’s elite “Golden Hammer” company charged through, a solid, moving wall of shields, thudding hammers, and flashing blades.

Swift and deadly, moving as a single being, the Golden Hammer drove through the mass of human attackers, scattering them in panic. Then the dwarven battle force turned, circled, and drove through again, and yet again as the Daewar on the holding line pressed relentlessly forward in their wake.

It was too much for even the fiercest of the marauders. They couldn’t get past the ranked shields to attack, they couldn’t block them because of the weapons snaking out to draw blood or crush bone at each thrust, and they couldn’t throw weight of numbers at them in screaming charges. Each time some tried, the dwarves went in under the weapons of the taller humans and bore them down, screaming.

Olim Goldbuckle and his personal guard were everywhere in the conflict – attacking, repelling, and organizing new tactics. In a swirl of fighting, milling confusion, the dwarven units seemed almost aloof to the panic around them. With methodical, determined dwarven logic they pressed and pounded, slashed and cut until what had been a massed assault was a broken, scattered battle, humans blindly fighting and trying to get away all along a mile-wide field.

Olim Goldbuckle found himself abruptly unoccupied as the latest gang of humans fled in panic, and signaled to Gem Bluesleeve, who polished off a barbarian, gave quick orders to his company, then hurried to join his prince.

Olim had climbed to the top of a boulder and was surveying the field. Carnage was everywhere, and some scattered fighting still went on, but Olim was looking for something else. “Where are the horsemen?” he snapped as Gem reached the boulder.

Gem looked around. He hadn’t seen a horseman since the fighting started. He climbed up beside his prince. Far south, near the steeps, companies of Daergar in iron masks were methodically attacking bands of humans who had fled in that direction, turning them away from the rising lands. Gem looked to the north and muttered an oath. There was no one on that side – only a few fleeing bands of humans with his own people in pursuit. “Where are the Theiwar?” he hissed. “They should be over there on our forward flank. That side of the pass is wide open!”

Olim shaded his eyes. “Have they betrayed us? Have they let the outsiders through and betrayed the Pact of Kal-Thax?”

He had barely spoken when shouts erupted on the near lines, where pairs of Daewar turned to point westward, up the rise.

Coming over the crest were human riders – hundreds of them, with the owl-feathered barbarian in the lead.

Gem cupped his hands. “Turn!” he roared. “Turn and defend!”

Swiftly the Daewar line reversed itself, regrouping in the two-at-ten-yards pattern to meet the charging riders.

The horsemen thundered toward them, but not as riders attacking in a charge. Instead, they seemed to be fleeing from something. Then, above and behind them, Theiwar warriors came over the crest. There was blood on their dark swords, and on their dark-steel armor, and through their mesh face-plates clamored their battle cries.

“They ambushed them!” Gem gasped. “The gods’-rejected Theiwar! They let those people through the lines, then ambushed them!”

“I don’t believe it,” Olim rumbled. “Twist Cutshank is stupid, but he isn’t that stupid!”

“See for yourself, Sire. They are pressing their attack.”

“Pressing, yes,” Olim growled. “Right down on our lines. Defend! Defend!”

“Nets and cables!” Gem shouted, signaling. Jumping to the ground, he ran to help.

Like a ragged juggernaut, the Cobar swept down on the thin Daewar line. Sling-stones stopped a few, and thrown nets attached to anchored cables brought down a few more, but the human riders had the slope to their advantage. Slashing and ripping, they went through and over the Daewar line … and didn’t even slow down. Once in the clear, most of them kept on going. For now, they had had enough of dwarves.

One, though, hauled rein on the slope just below Olim’s boulder, turned, and screamed a cry of hatred. Owl feathers rippling in the wind above his helmet, the Cobar leader heeled his mount, raised his sword in both hands, and charged the Daewar prince.

Two blades flashed as one in the sunlight. The human’s blade sliced toward Olim’s head and was deflected by an iron shield on an arm that, inch for inch, was far stronger than any human’s. Olim’s whistling blade came around in a wide arc and caught the human in midsection, just below his belted chest-plate. It almost cut him in two.

As Owl Feather flopped to the ground, dying, Olim straightened and scowled at the blood on his bright sword. Oddly, in that moment he noticed – or realized consciously for the first time – that human blood was precisely the same color as dwarven blood.

Just up the slope, so near that he could see their dark eyes behind their mesh masks, half a hundred Theiwar warriors clustered as though to flee. Chasing after the human riders, they had become separated from their main forces and now found themselves practically in the middle of the Daewar defenses – far too close for comfort. Raising his sword in command signal, Olim shouted, “Gem! Circle those Theiwar! Capture them!”

Gem Bluesleeve barked commands, and companies in the Daewar line headed up-slope at a run, encircling the confused Theiwar who turned to flee only to find themselves ringed by Daewar blades and shields. Gem Bluesleeve strode into the ring and ordered, “Theiwar! Lay down your arms! You are prisoners!”

From atop his rock, Olim watched, anger glinting in his blue eyes. If these Theiwar behaved themselves they would not be hurt, but he didn’t want any of them reporting back to Twist Cutshank just yet.

The Theiwar treachery – letting humans through the line and them turning them back upon the Daewar – had been a vicious trick, but Olim suspected there was more to it than just Twist Cutshank’s peevishness. Now he intended to find out.

Chapter 14

THE PRICE OF TREACHERY

The autumn sun had gone behind the peaks, and twilight lay upon Kal-Thax when Theiwar watchers saw a little band of brightly clad dwarves making their way northward. They were obviously Daewar, but there were fewer than a hundred of them, and many appeared injured.

Within minutes, Twist Cutshank himself was on the spotting ledge with Brule Vaportongue and a dozen others. “The plan worked,” the Theiwar chieftain gloated. “The humans cut them to pieces. Those are all that are left.”

“That’s Goldbuckle himself in the lead,” Slide Tolec noted, pointing. “I know him by his floral cloak.”

“It worked!” Twist repeated, a fierce grin parting his whiskers. “Glome was right. The Daewar are defeated. All we need to do is finish the job. Mark their route and get ready. I want Olim Goldbuckle’s head on a javelin tip. With him gone, we’ll have no problem taking over that stronghold of theirs.”

“You mean to ambush them?” Slide asked. He was surprised and a bit shocked at how few Daewar survivors there seemed to be. It didn’t seem right, somehow, that the human horsemen could have done so much damage – could have killed so many. And yet, there they were, no more than a hundred battered, slow-moving Daewar. And no returning Theiwar had reported anything of what occurred after the horsemen returned to the battle. In fact, there were quite a few Theiwar missing, as well.

“Of course we ambush them,” Twist grunted. “That’s part of Glome’s plan. Then we go take over that fortress they’ve been digging. No Daewar will ever again think of being king of Kal-Thax!”

“You really think the Daewar wants to be a king?” Brule Vaportongue asked.

“You heard Glome,” Twist snapped. “Why else would the Daewar have been digging a fortress all these years under Sky’s End?”

Glome himself was not there, and Slide realized that the assassin had been gone most of the day. It was as though he had shown up just long enough to persuade Twist Cutshank to start a war, then disappeared. Brule crouched on the shelf, staring out at the approaching Daewar, and the frown on his V-shaped face was as puzzled as Slide’s own. Still, when Twist Cutshank proceeded to organize his ambush and set out with his troops, they both remained silent. Something was very wrong here, and they both felt it. But they didn’t know what it was, and they knew the chieftain would not listen to their vague suspicions. It seemed the only person Twist listened to, now that he was chieftain, was Glome the Assassin.

By evening light the Theiwar ambushers were concealed along both sides of a narrow draw along which the Daewar must pass. Twist Cutshank crept to a stone out-cropping and watched them approach. They were near now, and the Theiwar’s eyes fixed on the gleaming helmet and floral cloak of the Daewar prince. Soon, he told himself. Soon, the Daewar will be dead.

“I don’t care how many of the gold-molders you kill,” he called softly. “Kill them all, for all I care. Just make sure that prince dies. Whoever’s blade draws Goldbuckle’s blood will have first choice of prizes when we enter the Daewar delves.”

Directly behind him a deep voice growled, “Well, I suppose that’s clear enough.”

Twist spun around, his mouth open. Six feet away, Olim Goldbuckle, bare-headed and without his regal cloak, gazed at him with angry, hooded eyes. Beyond, all along the ambush canyon, Daewar fighters – hundreds of them – were surrounding and containing the surprised Theiwar in their hiding places.

“Twist Cutshank,” the Daewar prince rumbled, “I accuse you of treachery, betrayal, and of intentionally breaking the Pact of Kal-Thax. Do you submit to judgment of the thanes, or do you wish to challenge me?”

With a roar of rage, Twist Cutshank drew his curved, dark-steel blade and launched himself at the prince of the Daewar. His sword flashed downward at the golden, unprotected hair of Olim’s head … and missed as the Daewar dodged aside, thrusting with his bright blade.

Twist felt the cold steel rip through the strapping between his breastplates, and felt the icy fire of it entering his chest. He tried to raise his blade again, but somehow lacked the strength even to hold it. It slipped from his fingers, and he sagged to his knees.

“I kind of thought you might choose to challenge,” Olim Goldbuckle said quietly. With a heave, he turned the blade and sliced, severing the Theiwar’s heart within him. When he withdrew his sword, Twist Cutshank pitched forward and lay still.

Wiping his sword clean, Olim strode back into the canyon and looked around at the captured ambushers. A Daewar guardsman stepped forward to hand him his helmet and help him with his cloak. When he was fully garbed again, Olim raised his voice. “You Theiwar,” he said so that all could hear. “You listen too much to the wrong people. First you followed Crouch Redfire, then you followed Twist Cutshank, and now you must find someone else to follow. Twist Cutshank broke the pact, and now he is dead. Can anyone here tell me why he chose to betray his allies?”

At first there was no answer, then from the guarded lines a broad-shouldered Theiwar of middle years stepped forward. “I can tell you, Daewar,” he growled.

“And who are you?”

“I am Slide Tolec.”

“Then tell me, Slide Tolec,” Olim urged. “Did your chief so hunger for bloodshed that he would carry out a betrayal and plan an invasion? Did he think the Daewar so rich that it would be worth the cost?”

“He believed that you have treasures,” Slide Tolec said. “Many think so. Do you?”

“Not like your leaders seem to think,” Olim snapped. “Was that his reason for this day’s treachery?”

“Part of it,” Slide admitted. “But mostly he feared that the Daewar plan to rule all of Kal-Thax.”

Olim frowned. “Rule Kal-Thax? Why did he think that?”

“Why else would you be delving a new fortress?” Slide glared at his captor. “Oh, we know what you have been doing over there on Sky’s End. We have eyes. We have seen the dumps of your delving. You must be digging out an entire city underground.”

“Delving a …” Olim stammered, abruptly at a loss for words. “You think we are delving a …” He clamped his mouth shut and looked away, stifling a laugh. A few yards away, Gem Bluesleeve stood in open-mouthed astonishment.

Doing his best to conceal his delight, Olim turned back to Slide Tolec. “What we do under Sky’s End is our own business,” he said sternly. “If, as you say, we are delving a fortress city there, then that is not the Theiwar’s concern.”

“It is if you plan to rule Kal-Thax from there,” Slide Tolec said stubbornly. “You can kill those of us you have captured if you want to, but we are only a few. There are many others who will avenge us. And if we die, the rest will know why we died … because the Daewar intend to rule! No Theiwar will ever bend the knee to a Daewar king!”

“And if I told you that we have no such intention, would you believe me?”

“Would you, if you were us?”

“Probably not,” Olim admitted. “Very well. The chieftain who led you in this folly has paid with his life. We came here to protect the Pact of Kal-Thax. We will come again when humans again press the borders, and we will keep coming as long as there is threat from outside. Tell whoever is your next chieftain to expect that and to get used to it.”

“You … you are letting us go?”

“What would it accomplish to kill you?” Olim turned his back and shook his head, stifling a grin of delight. Then he straightened his face, put on his sternest expression, and snapped at his captain, “Gem! Don’t just stand there gaping. We must be on our way.”

Gem Bluesleeve blinked at his prince. “But, Sire, what he said about our delvings —”

“So, they’ve figured out what we’re doing.” Olim quickly cut him off. “Building ourselves a fortress. Well, we couldn’t keep it secret forever, could we?”

“Couldn’t …?” Gem paused, then squared his shoulders. “Ah … no, Sire. It’s hard to keep a fortress secret.”

*

The slopes remained clear of intruders – it would be a while before humans or anyone else stirred up the courage to try another assault on the mountain realm – and Slide Tolec led a party from the border outpost back to Theibardin, the maze of hollowed-out caves that ran around two of the faces of Cloudseeker, high on the huge mountain’s crest.

It was the home realm of the Theiwar, and Slide had a grim intuition of what they would find when they arrived there. Instinct told him that Glome the Assassin had known, before it ever happened, that the Daewar stragglers had been decoys, and that Olim Goldbuckle was coming to call in force. Somehow, Slide felt, Glome had forseen the fate of Twist Cutshank, had even aided and abetted it.

It was no real surprise, then, to arrive at the Theiwar home lairs and find that Glome and his followers had taken control of the place. Glome had declared himself chieftain of the Theiwar and was proceeding with plans to attack, invade, and loot the Daewar’s new city under Sky’s End. The plan was simple and straightforward. Somehow, Glome had enlisted the help of the Daergar by persuading Vog Ironface that the Daewar intended to take over all the mining in Kal-Thax. With a combined force of Theiwar and Daergar – and as many of the wild, erratic Klar as they could round up – Glome intended to take the old Daewar citadel on the slopes of Sky’s End’s, which was – his spies assured him – the only entrance to the Daewar’s new delvings.

With the citadel held, Glome reasoned, they could lay siege to the underground city until they starved the Daewar out and forced a surrender.

When Slide Tolec and Brule Vaportongue first heard of the plan, they glanced at each other in astonishment. For the first time, it occurred to both of them that Glome the Assassin might truly be insane.

But after a glimpse of Glome himself, his eyes shining with a zealot’s fervor and an avenger’s rage – and surrounded by his hundreds of ardent followers – Slide and Brule wisely decided to keep their mouths shut. Glome was chieftain now, but not like any chieftain who had ruled before.

Glome did not accept criticism, and had repealed the law of challenge. Now, for any Theiwar to speak against the chieftain or his plans, the penalty was death.

Part III

A TASTE OF CHIVALRY

The Valley Lands

Southeastern Ergoth

Century of Wind

Decade of Oak

Fall, Year of Brass

Chapter 15

A KNIGHT TO PASS

The route of the seekers held southwestward as days became weeks and weeks became months. Across the central pass of the Suncradles and for five days beyond, the route had been charted by Cale Greeneye and his six companions in their search for the lost patrol. But everything west of that was uncharted country, and Colin Stonetooth led his people into it without ever looking back. Behind them was Thoradin; ahead – so said the prophecy of Mistral Thrax – was Everbardin.

No longer of Thorin, they were no longer Calnar, but still they were of those once called “the highest,” because of Thorin’s lofty place high above the human realms. In the dwarven manner of speech, the term was “Hylar.” So, having no other name for themselves, they took the name Hylar and carried it with them. For them, Thorin was now Thoradin, and Thoradin was of the past. Somewhere beyond the hills and plains of the middle realms lay the future.

Perched in the saddle of the great horse Piquin, with six other young adventurers at his back, Cale Greeneye scouted far afield as the tribe of Colin Stonetooth plodded onward toward a distant place none of them had ever seen – a place called Kal-Thax, which might be nothing more than legend or the dreams of old Mistral Thrax. Through the foothills leading down toward the Ergothian realm, the Hylar trekked, a thousand homeless households on the move. The steady beat of their marching drums was a promise and a warning to any who heard … a promise to the Hylar people that the prophecy of Everbardin would be fulfilled, and a warning to all others that these were a people who looked to the left sides of their tools.

Many times the dwarves had halted the journey – to rest and gather food, to perform marriages and funerals, once for the birth of a baby to one of the younger women, and sometimes just because a hill demanded to be delved, a forest cleaned of underbrush, or a vein of ore to be mined and smelted.

Now, as the procession entered even more new lands at a place where steep ravines crisscrossed a jumbled, broken countryside, they no longer resembled the serene, practical, and ensconced people they had been within Thorin. Their features were the same. They were still a short, sturdy dwarven people with dark hair and proud, thoughtful eyes, whose males’ trimmed beards were back-swept as though they faced into a wind and whose females were strong and usually beautiful. But now much of their attire was of the fabrics they had crafted along the way, and their armaments were more obviously warlike than they had favored in Thorin.

Three times the Hylar had been attacked – twice by roving humans and once by ogres – and their lessons had been learned well. They were a weathered and travel-wise group now, and most creatures gave them wide berth in passing.

At the rock-strewn top of a deep ravine that was as wide as a small valley, Cale Greeneye and his scouts drew rein, shading their eyes against the quartering sun of Krynn. The ravine walls were steep, though shelved with natural trails angling downward, and below were groves of trees lining a ribbon of bright water.

Cale studied the landscape, gazing carefully up and down the canyon, then gestured. “Let’s take a look,” he said. “That may be a good place to pass the night.”

He jerked around, then, as a voice only feet away said, “That’s exactly what you’ll have to do if you intend to cross that stream, but it won’t be easy.”

Cale squinted, then frowned as a small figure stepped out of shadows between two slabs of upthrust stone. The creature was no taller than a dwarf – not as tall as most – but was distinctly not a dwarf. He was slim and fine-boned, with a face that might have belonged to a half-sized elf and a great cascade of brown hair tied up in the back with a leather thong.

“A kender,” Cale Greeneye rasped, looking down from the height of Piquin’s saddle. “By Reorx! Are you people everywhere?”

“Not me,” the kender shook his head, eyes widening in surprise. “I’m just right here, at least right now. Of course, before I came here, I was at …”

“What did you mean, crossing the stream won’t be easy?”

“Oh, that’s because of the knight,” the kender said, shrugging.

“What knight?” Cale demanded, raising his voice in irritation.

“Oh, I don’t know. Any night really.” The kender looked from one to another of them, gazing happily up at the frowning faces high above him. “You don’t live around here, do you?”

“Of course not!” Cale snapped. “We’re just passing through.”

“I didn’t think so,” the kender said. “You’re dwarves, and there aren’t any dwarves around here that I know of. But if you plan to pass the knight down there, like you said, then you’d better have a pretty good plan, because he won’t make it easy for you.”

“Who won’t?”

“The knight.”

“What knight?”

“The one down there at the bridge. And you don’t need to shout. I can hear you just fine. I have good ears. Do you know, I can hear insects breathe? Have you ever listened to a pond beetle breathing? It sounds just like an angry minotaur, except a lot smaller. Sand scorpions sound pretty neat, too, but you have to be really careful, or they’ll sting you on the ear. My cousin Chiswin had one ear twice the size of the other for three weeks because he was listening to …”

“Gods’ rust!” Cale Greeneye hissed. “I only asked you a simple question! And you’re babbling on and on, and I haven’t learned anything yet. Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Sure.” The kender nodded and raised a curious brow. “You talk a lot yourself, for a dwarf. Are you sure you aren’t from around here? I believe those are the biggest horses I ever saw. And all seven of them are the same color. The knight’s horse is pretty big, but not that big, and it’s a horse of a different color. Sort of light brown, like …”

Cale took a deep breath. “What knight?” he roared.

“I just told you. The one down there at the bridge.”

“There … is … a … knight … at … the … bridge?” Cale spoke very slowly and distinctly, waving back his companions. Two of them had drawn their axes, out of sheer exasperation.

“There sure is,” the kender assured him. “His name is Glendon.”

“And what is this Glendon doing there, at the bridge?”

“He’s waiting for people to try to cross the stream.”

“Why?”

“So he can stop them. It’s what he does, you know … or, rather, I guess you don’t know, not being from around here.” Abruptly, the kender scampered directly under Piquin’s belly and peered up from the other side. “Aha! I wondered how you dwarves get on and off these big horses. Now I see. You have a little roll-down rope ladder. That’s pretty clever.”

Cale was fighting the reins, barely keeping his startled mount in control. Piquin’s ears were laid back, his eyes rolling, and his jaws fighting the bit. The other horses, sensing his panic, shied and back-stepped, and for a moment all the dwarves had their hands full.

“Rust and corruption!” Cale yelled, baring his teeth in a snarl. “Don’t you know better than to run under a horse?” Furious, Cale brought Piquin under control, slipped off his spurs, loosed the hitch on his mounting ladder, and scurried down. He turned, the reins in one hand, the other balled into a fist. “I won’t stand for …” he stopped, looking this way and that. The kender was nowhere in sight. “Now where did that little tarnish go?”

“Who?” a voice asked, from above.

Cale swung around and looked up. The kender was sitting in his saddle, high atop Piquin. “You!” the dwarf roared. “Come down from there!”

“Oh,” the kender said. He scampered down the ladder, agile as a spider on a web. “That’s all right, I was just curious. But I guess that was bad manners, considering that we haven’t been introduced or anything. My name is Springheel. Castomel Springheel. You can call me Cas if you want to. Who are you?”

“Cale Greeneye,” Cale growled. “And you stay away from my horse!”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” the kender said brightly. “And these others?”

With an impatient hiss, Cale gestured. “That’s Mica Rockreave, Gran Molden, and Coal Bellmetal. The three over there are Flint Cokeras, Pim Bouldersfield, and Shard Feldspar. Did you hear what I told you?”

“Plain as day,” Cas nodded. “It may be a pleasure to meet all of you,” — his brows drew together thoughtfully — “but then, of course, it may not. It’s too early to be sure. What kind of dwarves are you?”

“Hylar,” Cale announced proudly.

“Really? Never heard of them. Are you going to try to pass the knight today?”

“If he’s in our way,” Cale assured the little creature. “You say his name is Glendon? What’s the matter with him?”

“You mean, aside from being a human?”

“I mean, why does he want to stop people from crossing the stream? What’s on the other side?”

“Nothing much. It’s about like this side, only it’s the other side instead.”

Cale closed his eyes tightly and counted to seven. Then he asked, as politely as he could, “Why doesn’t he want us to cross his … his berusted bridge?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” the kender assured him. “It’s just that he made a vow. He said he is testing himself. I guess that’s something knights do.”

Shaking his head, Cale Greeneye clambered back aboard Piquin and hauled up his mounting ladder. “Pim,” he said, turning, “you and Coal go back and report what we’ve heard. The rest of us will go down and see about that knight.”

“Oh, good!” Cas Springheel grinned. “I’ll go tell Glendon that you’re coming. He’ll be delighted. There hasn’t been anybody for him to test himself on since those wandering ogres two days ago.” The kender turned and scampered away.

“What ogres?” Cale called after him. “What happened?”

“Nothing much,” the high voice drifted back up the slope. “They didn’t get across.”

“Rust!” Cale muttered. “I should know better than to try to talk to a kender. Anybody should know better.” With a sigh of disgust, he reached toward his saddle horn, then stopped. “Where’s my other spur?”

“Your what?” Mica Rockreave squinted at him.

“My other spur! I had two of them just a minute ago. Now there’s only one.”

*

The kender was out of sight by the time the mounted dwarves reached the valley floor, where great, gnarled trees swallowed the path. With drawn blades and loosed shields, they rode into the shadows, their eyes darting around for any sign of danger. But for all its ominous appearance, the grove seemed peaceful enough. Birds of a dozen colors and a hundred voices livened the tops of the trees, and where afternoon sun slanted through breaks in the foliage canopy bright flowers grew.

The path wound downward, the woods spreading and becoming more open. Around a bend Cale led them, then around another, and drew rein. Ahead the forest ended, and brushy slopes led downward to the bank of a rushing stream less than a hundred feet wide at this point. Lying across the stream was a great, gray tree trunk, weathered with age. Its top surface had been hewn level, making a smooth wooden path five feet wide with graded gravel approaches.

But it wasn’t the hewn timber bridge that held the dwarves’ attention. It was the figure atop it. The man – he was apparently human, though not even the slightest part of his face or body was visible – wore an assemblage of oiled chain mail and polished armor that covered him from plumed helm to steel-shod toes, from gantleted hands to plated shins to shrouded breastplate. His cloak and plume were deep blue in color, and the stitchwork device at his breast, like the lacquered emblem on his oval shield, was a red falcon in stoop on a field of gray. Besides his shield, he carried a banded mace at his back, a black-hilted sword at his side, and a long, tapered lance tipped with an iron ball upright in its saddle-boot.

The horse beneath him was almost as heavily – and elaborately – armored as he was, from spiked foreplate to skirts of mail.

As the dwarves reached the bridge approach, the man raised his shield toward them. His voice sounded deep and hollow, resonating from the closed face-plate of his helm. “Turn away!” he ordered. “None may cross here, upon my oath and honor.”

Cale’s glance picked out something else then. On the far bank, just to one side of the bridge, the kender sat grinning, cradling his knees as he watched with bright-eyed interest. The dwarf pointed. “If none may cross, then how about him?”

The man didn’t turn. “That is a kender,” he said. “Kender don’t count.”

“We do, too!” Cas Springheel objected from the far bank. “Some of us do, anyway!”

The man ignored him, his visage fixed stonily on the four mounted dwarves facing him. “Turn away,” he repeated. “None may cross here, upon my oath and …”

“You already said that,” Cale Greeneye snapped. “What is this oath you speak of?”

“My oath,” the knight said. “My oath, upon my honor. I have sworn to hold this bridge.”

“Why?”

For a moment, the man was silent, as though considering a question too preposterous to deserve an answer. Then he said, “Why not? It’s as good a bridge as any.”

“And if we decide to cross?”

“I will oppose your crossing.”

“And if we cross anyway?”

“That is most unlikely.”

“But if we do?”

“Then upon my honor, I would owe you a debt of service.”

“What does that mean?” Mica Rockreave demanded.

“It doesn’t matter what it means,” the knight said, patiently, “for you shall not cross.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Cale Greeneye muttered. He drew his axe, spurred Piquin with his one remaining spur, and crouched in his saddle as the tall horse thundered onto the bridge, straight at the motionless knight.

Cale had no idea what happened next. All he saw was a glimpse of the oval shield rising, the lance tipping downward, and the armored horse turning daintily, quartering to lean toward him. One moment he and Piquin were bearing down on the armored man, and an instant later the two of them, dwarf and horse, tumbled with resounding splashes into the rushing water below the bridge. Cale’s own shield and his axe flew from his grip, and his chest felt as though a Thorin smith had rearranged his ribs with a hammer.

Piquin thrashed about for a moment in the cold water, then got his bearings and headed back to shore, angling downstream on the current. For Cale, it was less simple. Massive and solid as any true dwarf, he went straight to the bottom and felt his boot soles crunch against gravel. He bent his knees and pushed upright as hard as he could, springing from the streambed. His head cleared water for only a second, but it was long enough to gulp in a deep breath before he sank again. Then, half walking and half swimming, he began his submerged journey back to shore.

He was fifty yards downstream when Gran Molden grasped his hand and helped him from the water. Piquin was already there, soaking wet and watching curiously. Cale shook himself, spat water, and cleared his eyes, then turned to glare upstream. The bridge was still there, the armored horse still stood upon it, and the hooded knight still sat his horse, motionless as though nothing had happened. Flint Cokeras and Shard Feldspar sat in their saddles, gaping.

“Rust and tarnish!” Cale snarled, then bent to cough up water. When the spasm passed, he grabbed Piquin’s reins and stormed upstream to the foot of the bridge. Striding to the very butt of the tree-bridge, he faced the stolid knight and demanded, “How did you do that?”

“Properly,” the knight said. “It’s a matter of proper training.”

“Well, we’re still coming across!” Cale raised his hand and sliced downward. “Shard! Flint! Put an end to this!”

Instantly, two powerful dwarven horses thundered past him, their riders wielding shield and blade. Side by side, they filled the narrow bridge. Beyond them, Cale saw the knight dip his lance, saw the shield rise, and saw the armored horse turn slightly and brace itself, as though kneeling. The dwarves hit the obstacle with a crash, and their tall horses loomed above the human’s shorter animal. Then the lance swept around in an arc, the emblazoned shield thrust upward, and the warhorse reared high, directly between its opponents.

Dwarves and golden horses seemed to fly in all directions, ending with resounding splashes on both sides of the bridge, and the knight resumed his position. “I did that properly, too,” his hollow-sounding voice called to Cale. “In all modesty, I am really quite good at what I do.”

It took a while to get Flint Cokeras and Shard Feldspar back on dry ground. When all were accounted for, the dwarves huddled together for a moment, then separated and began unpacking the gear from their saddles. On the bridge, the knight waited patiently. Beyond him, the kender danced up and down the riverbank, trying to see what was going on.

Cale’s companions rummaged through packs and came up with delving tools, a pick and shovel, and a finely made light winch fitted with a length of good Thoradin twist cable.

While Gran Molden stood guard with a loaded sling, the others went to work at the foot of the bridge. Within moments they had a sizeable hole dug alongside the log butt and were fitting their winch to the timber.

“What are you doing over there?” the knight called, sounding puzzled.

They ignored him. While Flint played out cable from the winch, Cale carried its end downstream and spliced a loop around the trunk of a sturdy tree. He returned, thrust prybars through the winch sockets, and three strong dwarves put their backs to the task of reeling in cable.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the timber bridge shuddered, and the knight shouted, “You can’t do that!”

By then, though, they had. The entire bridge tilted, slid into the freshly dug hole alongside, and knight and horse disappeared into the river. For long seconds there was no sign of them, then a horse head bobbed to the surface downstream, and an unarmored head with flowing red hair surfaced near it.

Repacking their goods, Cale and his companions climbed aboard their horses and rode in stately procession across the slanting bridge to the far bank, where a delighted kender was clapping, dancing around, and calling encouragement to the man trying to follow his horse out of the water downstream.

“You did it!” the kender burbled to Cale Greeneye. “You actually made it across!”

“In no particular modesty,” Cale told him, “we are very good at what we do, too.”

The man had gained the shore. Without his armor, which he had left somewhere beneath the water, he looked thoroughly human and thoroughly drenched.

“Bring him up here,” Cale Greeneye ordered. “I want to find out about that ‘debt of service’ business.” He looked around, remembering his missing spur. “Where did that kender go?”

Castomel Springheel was nowhere in sight. His sharp ears had caught the sound of distant drums, and he was on his curious way to see where the sound came from.

Chapter 16

A DEBT OF SERVICE

The arrival of the Hylar had transformed the quiet little valley into a bustling, busy place. There were dwarves everywhere: dwarves at work straightening the tipped bridge; dwarves making fires and setting up lean-tos; dwarves tending stock, unpacking provisions, and scouting sentry posts; dwarves on fold-out ladders grooming dozens of the huge, gold-and-white horses; dwarves with nets and hooks retrieving arms and armor from the rushing stream; dwarf women tending dwarf children; dwarf foragers beginning a harvest of hay and wild grains from the fields above the stream; and a very old dwarf with a crutch, who muttered dourly to himself as he padded around here and there, trying to find a quiet place to rest.

Glendon Hawke felt totally out of place among them, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. They had his horse, his arms and armor, all of his clothing except the brief under-kilt he wore … and they had him. A ring of grim-looking dwarves with weapons in hand surrounded him. Nobody had told the man that he was a prisoner, but it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere, even had his honor permitted it.

The evening breeze had dried his hair, and it fluttered around his cheeks like locks of spun copper as he turned toward a procession of dwarves coming through the ring of guards. One was Cale Greeneye, the one who had demanded and accepted his pledge of service. Following him were a regal-looking older dwarf with fierce features and shrewd eyes, a heavily-muscled younger dwarf who seemed inches taller than most of them, a strikingly pretty female in traveling robes, and the old dwarf with the crutch. There were others, as well, but these held back as the first five approached.

Cale Greeneye looked the man up and down, an ironic twinkle in his eyes, then turned to the older dwarf standing beside him. “Sire, this is the human I told you about. His name is Glendon Hawke … or Sir Glendon, I suppose, though he doesn’t look much like a sir right now. He calls himself a knight.”

“I am a knight,” Glendon muttered. “Not of the orders, of course, but no less a knight. I am a free lance.”

“Sir Knight,” Cale completed the introductions, “this is our chieftain, Colin Stonetooth, my father. And my sister, Tera Sharn. And this is our captain of guards, Willen Ironmaul. The venerable one there is Mistral Thrax. Please tell them what you have granted to me.”

Glendon took a deep breath. “I have pledged you my service,” he said grudgingly.

“Why?”

“Because my honor demands it. You bested me at the bridge, even if you did so by foul means.” Standing very straight, the human looked down at his new masters, accepting his fate. He was at least a foot taller than any of them, even the massive Willen Ironmaul. But his pledge was his honor, and he had given his pledge.

“Right.” Cale Greeneye nodded. “And I have committed your services to my father.”

The chieftain was studying Glendon with unconcealed dislike. Now he glanced at his son. “This … this human is going to teach us to fight? I have my doubts, as I told you.”

“He has skills, Father,” Cale assured the chieftain. “I have seen them.”

“Yes, I know. With lance and shield, on horseback. What else?”

“He told me he has studied every sort of combat. I tested him with simple swords. He disarmed me with one parry.”

The chieftain gazed at Glendon again, curiously. “You disarmed my son?”

“Of course,” the man said. “He doesn’t know how to use a sword. No offense intended, though. He is quick and strong, and can learn.”

The dwarves glanced at one another. Among them, Cale Greeneye was reckoned a fine swordsman – almost the equal of Jerem Longslate, who had never been bested either in trial or in combat.

Colin Stonetooth turned his head, catching the eye of the captain of the Ten. “I should like to see that for myself,” he decided. “Jerem?”

“Yes, Sire.” Jerem Longslate handed his shield and buckler to one of his companions. “Simple swords?”

“For now.” Colin Stonetooth nodded. “Do you agree?” he asked Glendon Hawke.

“I am at your service,” the man shrugged.

“Do you want your own sword?” Cale asked him.

“It doesn’t matter,” the knight said. “The skill is in the hand, not in the blade.”

Cale pulled his own sword and turned it, presenting the hilt. “Then use mine,” he said.

By the time the rest had stepped back, clearing a wide circle, Jerem Longslate had stripped himself of armor and robes. Wearing only his kilt and boots, carrying only his wide sword, he strode forward to face the man who towered over him. “Are there any particular rituals or rules?” he asked.

“None.” The man shook his head. “A demonstration is all that was requested. Just attack me, whenever and however you like.” He hefted Cale’s blade, testing its weight. It was balanced differently than his own. Its weight was forward, toward the point. Well suited, he thought, to short arms with powerful wrists and shoulders. Turning half away from Jerem Longslate, he held the blade upright, gazing at its surface.

After a moment, Jerem barked, “Well, are you about ready? I’m waiting.”

The human didn’t even look at him. “Why are you waiting? I invited you to attack.”

Jerem frowned, then shrugged. He raised his own blade before him, circled two steps to the right, and abruptly ducked and lunged, a movement almost too quick to see. Taking the man at his word, he went straight for the heart … and stopped. Somehow his sword was not where it should be. It was still in his hand, but now pointed off to one side. The clang of struck steel rang in his ears, and something sharp was poking at his throat. It was the human’s blade.

“You see,” Glendon said, critically, “you made two mistakes there. The first was in thinking that I did not see you. The second was that midriff thrust. I hardly had to parry at all to knock it aside. If you intend to defeat a person in combat, you shouldn’t give him such advantages.”

The man pulled back his sword, and a tiny drop of blood trickled from beneath the dwarf’s whiskers. Jerem glanced over at his chieftain. “It was a fluke, Sire. May I try again?”

“As you please,” Colin Stonetooth nodded.

This time the captain of the Ten gave no advantages. With a flurry of whistling cuts and thrusts he attacked the tall human … and found himself flat on his back on the hard ground while his sword spun upward, flashing in the evening sun. At the top of its arc the sword steadied, then fell point-downward directly toward him. At the last instant, a long arm stretched above him and a long-fingered, human hand caught the falling blade.

Jerem rolled away and got to his feet. Glendon Hawke calmly flipped the dwarf’s sword, reversed it, and handed it back to him. “That was much better,” he said approvingly. “If you would like to learn that disarm-deck-and-skewer trick, I’ll teach it to you … after you have mastered some basics.”

Colin Stonetooth spread his hands, looking at his grinning son. “Very well, Cale,” he agreed. “The man can instruct us. What does he want in return?”

“To be released from service when his task is done, and to have his belongings returned to him. He asks no other reward. He said his pledge is bound by honor, not by trade.”

“A noble human,” Colin said, wonderingly.

Glendon Hawke heard the comment. “Nobility, like chivalry, is a condition of knighthood, … Sire. Skill alone is only the pattern of the tapestry, not the fabric. Disciplines of hand and mind must be woven from the heart.”

“We can stop here for a while,” Colin decided. “It will do us no harm to learn what this man can teach us.”

Off to one side of the camp, noise erupted – a flurry of booming sounds that settled quickly into a fast, rhythmic beat. Colin Stonetooth put his hands to his ears, and Cale Greeneye shouted, “Somebody get that kender away from the drums! And while you’re at it, search him! I want my spur back!”

All around, dwarves glanced at one another and shook their heads. Everyone knew about the kender. Through all the history of Thorin, wandering kender had appeared now and then among the Calnar – usually during Balladine, when bright baubles lay everywhere for quick hands to take.

Kender had never been welcomed at Balladine. But no one had ever devised an effective way to keep them out. And, once present, there was no good way to get rid of a kender short of killing him or boring him.

There was an old saying among the dwarves, accepted as just one of those unpleasant facts of life: Kender happen.

*

“It is a contamination of magic,” Mistral Thrax explained sadly. “The old scrolls tell of it, those handed down by the earliest smiths. It was the god Reorx – they say – who created the powers of chaos, in the form of a faceted gray stone. And all in its path became infected by its evil.”

“Old tales.” Colin Stonetooth shook his head. “Why would the greatest of the gods, the creator of all metals – and maybe the creator of all of us as well – have despoiled the world with …” — his beard twitched as he curled a lip in disgust — “with magic? Surely, Mistral, you don’t believe that?”

The ancient shrugged and turned his palms upward. On each calloused palm a symbol glowed dull red – a Y-shaped design that might have been a twin-tined spear. “I don’t know now what I believe,” he said. “But this is real, and it came from the magical eyes of a human who used sorcery. And I believe my vision of Kitlin Fishtaker was real … and I know the way to Kal-Thax. How would I know the way to Kal-Thax if I weren’t touched by … by magic?”

They sat atop a stone bluff, watching the combat drills in the fields below. The human knight, Glendon, had started teaching Willen Ironmaul’s guards the skills of his craft, and now he was surrounded by fully half the Hylar nation – men, women, and even children – all anxious to learn the arts of strategy and weaponry. Colin Stonetooth noted to himself that his Hylar had come a long way since Thoradin. No longer was the left side of the tools just an occasional interest. Many of the tools they carried now – things like swords and maces – were tools with no other side but the left.

Glendon Hawke might not have been happy with the turn of events that brought him here, teaching the means of combat to hundreds of fascinated dwarves, but he had admitted to the chieftain that he had never encountered students more apt. The Ten had been the first instructed, and Jerem Longslate had learned the sword so well that he could now disarm the teacher one time out of three. They were also learning the fine art of shield-play and the strangely human arts of the lance. The giant Calnar horses had proved surprisingly adept at lance-charging and were learning along with their riders.

In many ways, the dwarves surprised Glendon. As they learned, they adapted their new skills to their own circumstances and often improved on them. One example – the sudden wheeling of a rider to pick up a footman, then charging into battle with each dwarf clinging to one side of the high saddle, hammers or axes swinging in great arcs – had come as close to killing the knight as any tactic he had ever seen. Had he not dived facedown into the dust the first time Willen Ironmaul and a guardsman demonstrated that, he was sure he would have been beheaded.

The field below the bluff rang with the clang of steel on steel, an energetic counterpoint to the ringing of hammers on anvils off to one side, where dwarves were shaping new shields crafted after Glendon Hawke’s own. There were also bits of armor in the making and sturdy axes suited both to woodcraft and to war. Some of the craftsmen were also beating out battle-helms more suitable for outdoor wear than the old delving helmets most of the Hylar had worn.

Colin Stonetooth watched his people moodily. They were changing, becoming a nation unlike the Calnar from whom they had separated. He hoped the differences would not one day bring their downfall. As a tribe, the Hylar were becoming more formidable by the day, under the tutelage of the somber human knight. But, as with the Calnar of their origins, they were not a prolific people. A male and female who wed tended to wed for life and rarely produced more than three or four children.

We are becoming fighters, Colin Stonetooth thought, watching. Let us not become so enamored of our new skills that we put too much trust in them. No matter how dangerous we are, one by one, we are not destined to be numerous.

As though reading his mind – a tendency the old dwarf had developed of late and which Colin found startling and distracting – Mistral Thrax said, “Yes, we have a destiny. I do not see it clearly, but the new skills will aid in it.” He stared at the marks on his palms, looking puzzled, then muttered, “In Kal-Thax. Our destiny. Not to be all, or even most, but to lead … others?” He shook his head. “I do not understand, my chieftain.”

“Nor do I,” Colin admitted. “Tell me more about the old scrolls.”

“They are very old,” Mistral Thrax mused. “Several centuries, at least. Perhaps more. And some of them speak of that mystical gem, the faceted gray stone. They say that Reorx himself created it and placed it on Krynn. It was delivered into the keeping of a human king.”

“Why?” Colin’s brows went up in outrage. “A human? Why a human? If Reorx had done such a thing, why not give it to dwarves? We are the primary people of this world, after all.”

“They don’t say why.” Mistral Thrax shook his head. “But they do say that the humans lost the thing.”

“Well, of course they did! Who would trust any human with anything of importance? Even a god should know better! At least, no self-respecting dwarf would ever actually try to use such powers.”

“Gnomes set it free,” Mistral Thrax said. “At least, so the scrolls say.”

“Gnomes? That’s even worse than it being in the hands of humans!”

“Oh, they didn’t get it. Gnomes can’t do anything right. They just set it loose, and since then there has been magic on Krynn. So the scrolls say.”

“And this?” Colin indicated the marks on the old dwarf’s hands. “You think it comes from that?”

“The legends of the scrolls tell of Kitlin Fishtaker, a dwarven spearman who traded river fish to the humans of that place. They say he was there when the gray stone was released and tried to knock the thing down with his spear before it could get loose. The stone punished him. He was permanently contaminated with magic and became an outcast because any who touched him also would catch the disease.”

“Folk tales,” Colin Stonetooth rumbled.

“Maybe.” Mistral Thrax shrugged. “But I saw Kitlin Fishtaker in a vision, and I saw the man who couldn’t be seen in the attack on … Thoradin. And the eyes I pulled from his head were not eyes. And now I, too, am contaminated.”

“And so we wander across the vast lands in search of a place we have never seen, called Kal-Thax.” Colin planted his chin on his fists moodily. “It’s just as well, I suppose. After what happened, I could no longer stay there, and all the rest here came with me by choice. So, having somewhere to go is better than having nowhere to go, even if the place we aim for is only a legend itself.”

“Kal-Thax is there,” Mistral Thrax assured him. “In those mountains ahead.”

“I see no mountains,” Colin snapped.

“But you will, my chieftain. I see them already … more clearly, sometimes, than I see what is around us here.”

On the wide field below, Glendon had his charges lined up in double rows, facing each other. He raised a hand, stepped back, and several hundred Hylar – men, women and children – began happily pounding away at one another with padded swords and shields.

Castomel Springheel drifted through the defenses of the Ten to appear beside Colin Stonetooth. Grinning his delight, the kender surveyed the drill field. “They’ll never believe this back in Kendermore,” he told himself. “Dwarves going to knight school! I wouldn’t believe it myself, if I wasn’t right here to see it.”

Part IV

URKHAN’S LEGACY

The Great Caverns

Beneath Cloudseeker Peak

Century of Wind

Decade of Oak

Early Spring, Year of Copper

Chapter 17

THE UNDERMOUNTAIN

The mountain peak called Cloudseeker was not the tallest of peaks in Kal-Thax. Its broad summit, from which the Windweavers thrust upward like giant sharks’ teeth, was lower by a thousand feet than soaring Sky’s End, to the north. But Cloudseeker was far wider. From the foot of its north slopes where Sky’s End began to climb, to the sloping fields and the high-walled, closed valley that marked its southern base, Cloudseeker was nearly fifty miles across by horizontal measurement.

The caves and shallow warrens of the Theiwar stronghold, called Theibardin or “Theiwar-Home,” occupied only a small area below its crest. Above, the three great crags of the Windweavers jutted skyward, surrounding an immense sinkhole lake that was frozen over in most seasons but which provided constant seepage of moisture into the very heart of the mountain. Few, if any, Theiwar had ever ventured into the resulting deep caverns, but Daewar explorer-spies, far more venturesome than the dour, single-minded Theiwar, had crept into them by various routes, charted portions of them, and returned to Daebardin with wondrous tales.

Beneath the crags, they said, were deep caverns that ran for miles, converging into an enormous chamber dominated above by a giant stalactite a thousand yards high and even wider at its top, standing like a giant pillar above a subterranean lake big enough to be called a sea. The great stalactite was of living stone, and on the charts they called the sea Urkhan, in honor of a Daewar explorer who had died there on the expedition.

The Urkhan Sea was at least seven miles across, north to south, and was surrounded by dozens of square miles of natural caverns eroded into shale layers surmounted by harder stone. Throughout these, fresh air flowed from natural vents around the base of the peak and wafted upward to numerous open seeps around the Windweavers that served as exhausts. And many of the deep warrens were lighted by quartz strata, admitting daylight from miles above.

Only a bit of the marvel had been explored, but it was these reports and these charts that had enchanted the old Daewar regent, Bole Diamondcuff, and after him the prince, Olim Goldbuckle. Visions of an impregnable fortress, of a subterranean realm which might one day be a kingdom, blossomed for them both. Long before the spread of chaos from the east became obvious, it was Goldbuckle’s decision to drive a road right through the heart of Sky’s End, into the deeps of Cloudseeker, and relocate Daebardin into the subterranean heart of the mountain that the surly Theiwar thought of as their own.

To the ambitious and energetic Daewar dwarves, the golden people of Kal-Thax, the only valid claim the Theiwar had was to the part of the mountain they actually occupied and used, which was almost none of it. “Use it or lose it,” was the Daewar philosophy where territory was concerned.

So the great secret road went forward, a level tunnel twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, driven through the granite heart of Sky’s End from Daebardin on the north, into the porous underlayers of Cloudseeker. As it neared its end, the Daewar made preparation to move to new quarters.

The hidden opening beneath Galefang, where Olim Goldbuckle led his expedition after the defense of the eastern border and the punishing of the Theiwar chieftain, was only a little, wind-scoured tunnel in the face of a cliff. But set into its back wall were iron doors, and beyond the doors was a wide, spiral shaft leading downward to the roadhead far below.

Hundreds of Daewar worked there, in gloom illuminated by oil wicks, forge glows, and torches. Expert delvers, the Daewar had averaged nearly thirty yards a day for almost ten years, digging away at the solid stone while winch-driven cable carts strung with dozens of almost inaudible bat-bells hauled the rubble back along the lengthening tunnel to dump it below Daebardin’s slopes. The resulting skirt of broken stone now was a slope in itself, extending almost to the great chasm which separated the base of Sky’s End from the foothills and the breaks and plains of the wastelands beyond.

Sealing the high doors behind them, Olim Goldbuckle and his legion descended into the depths of Cloudseeker, where delvemasters studied their charts while picks and drills chipped away at stone that was softer than most they had encountered before and different in color.

Emerging into the roadway, Olim Goldbuckle climbed atop a laden cable-cart and picked up a piece of the stone rubble. He looked at it, sniffed it, and tasted it, then tossed it back and swung down. Above him, bat-bells tinkled merrily. The bells were tiny silver devices which the Daewar had invented long ago to drive away the flocks of blood bats which sometimes invaded digs. But now they had another use as well. Although most people – even dwarves – could hardly hear the bells, they had found that echoes in stone could resonate them. By “thumping” stone in a delve, and counting the times the bells responded, they could tell how far it was from one side of the stone to the other.

Olim ignored the tiny sounds now, brushing his hands. “Gypsum,” he said to Gem Bluesleeve. “We are near the caverns.”

“Very near, Sire,” a delvemaster looked up from his spread chart. “Nearer than we thought. We could break through at any moment.”

“Into what?” Olim squinted at the chart.

“According to Urkhan’s calculations,” the delvemaster said, “there is a great natural cavern ahead. The one he called the first warren. It connects to other caverns beyond, and eventually to the subterranean sea.”

“I hope we break through above sea level,” Olim noted.

The delvemaster drew himself up, as one deeply offended. “Would you like to calculate the elevations yourself, Sire?”

“Of course not.” Olim smiled. “I trust your calculations above all others, Slate Coldsheet. Just keep doing the wonderful job you do.” He turned away, muttering to Gem Bluesleeve. “That’s the problem with delvers, Gem. By the time they are wise enough to chart a bore, their sense of humor has been drowned out by the ringing in their ears.”

Followed by some of his guard, Olim went forward to where the boring was in progress. The ring of hammers on iron drills, the splitting of stone as foot-wide slabs were broken away with prybars, and the clank of picks and mauls as the rubble was broken filled the wide tunnel with a chorus of sound. Beneath its tempo was the crunch of shovels, the low thunder of rubble raining into high-sided carts, and the ever-present, rhythmic tapping of mallets as spikes were set to steady the cart rails that followed along behind the dig.

The carts were wide, low-wheeled vehicles chained together by threes and fives, and a constant parade of them had been rolling back to the far side of Sky’s End for the past ten years to dump rubble. At intervals, where the tunnel was wider, empty returning carts were diverted to side-rails to make way for the full ones.

Working in shifts, with hammer drills and prybars, the Daewar delvers could extend their tunnel as much as fifty feet in a day’s time, even in the toughest rock. Now that the substance was softer, they were moving faster than that, though some additional effort was required for occasional shoring as they went. The first vertical fault they had encountered, a seep in soft, porous stone, had cost them a dozen lives and three days’ delay because of a cave-in. Now they took no such chances.

A lantern-bearer going before him, Olim Goldbuckle went all the way to the front, where a fresh layer of stone had just been levered away, adding another foot to the tunnel’s almost fifty miles of length. Drillers and drivers, cutters and prisers stepped back as the prince approached, and a sweating young Daewar with bulging forearms and whiskers of spun gold pointed at the new-cut face of the tunnel. “Softer by the minute, Sire. And we have sound.”

“We are that close?” Olim’s brow creased. “Let me hear.” He knelt at the sheer wall of the fresh cut and sniffed the stone, then pressed his ear against its surface. The young driver stepped forward, attached a string of bat-bells to the surface, raised his hammer, and delivered a smashing blow to the stone inches from his prince’s head. The bat-bells quivered and tinkled, and Olim counted his heartbeats, then grinned as a muted echo came back to him, ringing through the stone itself.

“Twenty feet,” he judged. “Not more than that.” He stood. “Gem, bring a company of fighters forward. I doubt if there is a Theiwar within miles. They don’t have the patience or the inclination to explore what is beneath their very feet, but let’s take no chances when we break through. If there happens to be anyone there, we don’t want reports going aloft just yet.”

“Yes, Sire,” Gem Bluesleeve agreed. “If they knew we were tunneling into their mountain, rather than building a city under ours, they might be rather upset.” Gem hurried back the way they had come to select his company of warriors. He would head it himself.

Olim followed him, away from the resumed clamor of the dig. He had a few hours to wait before the tunnel broke through into the first of the giant caverns charted by Urkhan and his band. He wanted to eat, and to rest, and to give some thought to what should be done once the tunnel was completed. He didn’t really expect to find anyone at the end of it. The Theiwar were not explorers, and who else could have stumbled onto Urkhan’s discovery?

Once fortified, not even dragons or magic would be likely to invade such a place. Olim shivered slightly at the thought. He had never seen a dragon and never expected to. But there was magic in the world, and, like all of his kind, he considered magic an abhorrent thing, an evil that only humans or other lesser races would even think about exercising. Even the primitive Theiwar and dark-dwelling Daergar … even the wild-eyed Klar abhorred magic. There were legends, of course, of a dwarf who had become involved with magic in some way, but to Olim Goldbuckle the idea was unthinkable. Yet, there had been times of late when Olim’s dreams had been troublesome. Several times, in his sleep, when he dreamed of the great undertaking now at hand, a spectral, shadowy figure had been there in his dreams – a figure that whispered words to him. “The Daewar are chosen,” the specter said, “to carve out a place.” But then it added, “But others will come to guide your race.” Each time, Olim had awakened shaken and puzzled. What others? What did it mean?

As an attendant handed him a loaf and a bowl, Olim Goldbuckle’s gold-whiskered face contorted itself into a scowl. “Guide my race?” he muttered. “None but Daewar shall rule Daewar!”

“Sire?” The attendant blinked at him, startled.

“Nothing!” Olim growled. “Bring me ale.”

“Yes, Sire.” The attendant hurried away, and Olim perched on the wheel of a sidelined cart to have his meal.

Had he been human, or even elf, Olim Goldbuckle might have dismissed the dreams as something imagined … as something simply beyond understanding. But Olim Goldbuckle, prince of the Daewar, was a dwarf. And like most full dwarves, his practical mind had no use for the unintelligible nor any patience for things indistinct. He could not ignore the dreams or simply forget them. Especially not the latest one.

“You will know them when they come,” the phantom voice had added, this last time. “You will know them by the drum.”

Olim was still thinking about dreams when distant shouts echoed back along the tunnel, and messengers came running. “We’re through, Sire!” they shouted. “We have entered the first warren, just as Urkhan’s charts promised!”

“Send runners northward,” Olim ordered. “Withdraw all Daewar from Daebardin and start them this way. Prepare to seal this tunnel when all have passed through. We will establish residence and claim this place as soon as we have looked around.”

*

The warren was an immense natural cavern, softly lighted by a high ceiling that was, in some places, pure quartz. More than half a mile beneath the surface, it was as Urkhan’s explorers had described – a vast, elongated chamber almost two miles across at its widest point and four miles long including a narrowing, funnel-like “tail” that curved away to the east. Here and there, stalactites hung from the high ceilings, their shapes as varied and fantastic as candle-beads. Beneath each was a waiting stalagmite, tall sentinel spires like the bases of trees in a giant forest.

“Marvelous!” Olim Goldbuckle exclaimed as he led his guards through the new opening into the silent cavern. Faint echoes of his voice drifted lazily back to him, and in the distance something moved – something very large, slowly raising what might have been a head, to listen.

Some of the Daewar clasped their swords, but an old delvemaster hurried forward to thrust an unrolled scroll under the nose of his prince. “Tractor worm,” he said, pointing. “As Urkhan described. They are large creatures. Very strong. But slow, dull-witted, and docile. The explorers supposed that they might be useful, if they could be controlled.”

“Tractor worm,” Olim repeated. Quickening his stride, he hurried toward the movement, dozens of Daewar following him as more entered the cavern behind them.

The thing was huge, at least thirty feet in length, and it turned what appeared to be its head toward them as they approached. No eyes were visible, nor ears. Instead, its “face” was a cluster of waving tentacles surrounding an orifice that opened and closed rhythmically. Olim stepped closer, peering at the creature. He raised his shield and waved it from side to side. The creature did not respond. “It’s blind,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, the thing turned toward him, its tentacles quivering. “Ho!” Olim rasped. “It can hear me.”

Beside him, Gem Bluesleeve stepped aside and cupped his hands. “Ho, worm!” he called. Immediately, the raised end of the thing turned toward him. He stepped farther to the side and called again. Again the worm responded, turning to face him. “It hears,” he called to the others. “Watch!” Turning, he hurried away, quartering around the creature until he was off to one side of it. Then he called, “Ho! Worm! Here I am!”

Obediently, the thing turned toward him, this time moving its entire body in a slow, methodical arc to face him. The dwarf chuckled. “I have this thing’s full attention,” he called. “See? Now it is coming toward me!” He scampered away a hundred feet and turned to call once more. The huge worm increased its speed, its gray, banded body rippling as it flowed across the uneven floor of the cavern. It was faster than it had seemed, and Gem backpedaled, staying a good distance from it. Its pace was that of a walking dwarf.

“He has its attention, all right,” Olim noted to the others watching. “Now I wonder what he intends to do with it.”

“Or how he will get rid of it,” the old master delver Slate Coldsheet added. “The captain should have read these scrolls. Urkhan’s party reported that the worms tend to become … uh … attached to people. They follow and try to get close. The danger is that they might actually crush a person by their weight. Some of the explorers were nearly exhausted by the time they managed to elude their pets.”

“I could use some help here, I think!” Gem Bluesleeve called, walking briskly in the distance while the giant worm chugged along behind him. “I don’t know how to make this thing stop!”

“Some of you drillers,” Olim said, gesturing, “see if you can get some grapples on that thing.”

Gem was quite some distance away now, coming around in a long circle, trying to head back to the others. Behind him, the worm followed happily, its banded length rippling in the subdued light, its tentacled face waving merrily.

Carrying chains, throw-lines, and rock-harness, several dozen drillers and delvers fanned out to approach the monster from its flanks. It seemed not to mind them at all. Its full attention was focused on Gem Bluesleeve, and it seemed to desire nothing else in life than to reach him. Gem kept walking, trying to keep that from happening.

Flanking the worm, teams of dwarves managed to get sling-harness attached to it at various places and grasped the halter-lines, setting their heels. The worm neither slowed nor turned. It continued its methodical pace, following Gem Bluesleeve. Behind and along its flanks dozens of sturdy dwarves were dragged along, their steel soles carving ruts in the hard floor.

“Tie off those lines!” Olim Goldbuckle roared. Gem was approaching now, looking very worried, and the worm wasn’t far behind him.

Scrambling, the delvers spread and raced outward, carrying their cables. Two modest stalagmites were within reach, and they snugged the lines there, then watched in awe as the cables came taught, strained, and hummed, and the stone of the stalagmites began to crumble. The worm slowed, but surged forward again as one of the restraints burst in a shower of limestone dust. But other cables held the monster now, attached to sturdier uprights, and it tugged futilely at its bonds for a moment, then subsided.

“Tractor worm,” the old delvemaster remarked, shaking his head. “We should have a few of those things hauling our ore-carts.”

Behind Olim there was a clatter as something fell to the stone floor. Out in the cavern the tractor worm, which had been resting quietly on its tethers, suddenly raised the front half of its huge body upright, whistled a sound that might have been either a scream or a roar, and surged against the lines. Cables parted, and the worm shot free to roll over on the floor.

More quickly than seemed possible, it turned, raised itself, and dived straight at a group of drillers trying to back away. The great creature’s body smashed down on them, then it roared and raised itself again, flailing about like a creature gone berserk.

“The bat-bells!” the delvemaster shouted. “Someone dropped the bat-bells. That’s what it hears!”

Dwarves scurried about, collecting the spilled silver bells and thrusting them into clothing to muffle their sound. Out in the cavern, Gem Bluesleeve brandished his sword and shouted. “Ho! Worm! To me!”

Again the worm turned, away from the drillers, heading for Gem. Other drillers and several guardsmen raced toward it, throwing cables and stone-nets.

Then, as abruptly as it had reacted, the creature subsided. All the bat-bells had been muffled, and it no longer heard their clamor. Racing around the thing, delvers and guards bound it in a thick mesh of steel cables and ran anchor lines to several large stands of stone.

Where it had attacked, two delvers lay dead, smashed into the stone floor by the mass of the monster. Several others limped away, injured but still able to move.

“Keep those delving bells silent!” Olim Goldbuckle ordered. “Get them out of here. Take them back into the tunnel.” Then he swung around to face the delvemaster. “You still think those worms might be useful, Slate?”

“If they can be controlled,” Slate said. “They react to sound, and if there are some sounds that … I don’t know. We’ll have to work at it.”

Gem Bluesleeve approached, visibly shaken. It had been on impulse that he had distracted the raving worm from the delvers, calling its attention to himself. Now he was wondering just what he – sword and all – could have done had the thing not stopped.

Olim Goldbuckle looked at his captain and frowned, then sighed, shaking his head. It would do no good to admonish the guardsman for risking his own life. It was just the way he was.

Gem approached, started to speak, then simply shrugged.

“If you are through playing with your worm,” Olim Goldbuckle told him, “I believe we should get on with exploring these caverns.”

Slate Coldsheet glanced at his chart and pointed. “Straight south, Sire. A mile or so, then the cavern narrows for another mile, past which is some kind of crevice. Beyond should be another cavern – not quite as wide as this, but longer. From there should be a tunnel to Urkhan’s sea.”

Chapter 18

THE BLOOD OF AMBITION

By the double light of Krynn’s moons the raiders converged upon the nighttime slopes of Sky’s End, and Glome the Assassin stood atop a ridge, watching in satisfaction.

As chieftain of the Theiwar of Theibardin, now that Twist Cutshank was dead, he had been able to assemble the tribes of Theiwar to council. Once gathered, it had been an easy accession for Glome. No subtlety had been involved in his becoming chieftain of the Theiwar. A few beatings, a few assassinations, and now he was the undisputed leader of thousands of dwarves who must do his bidding. He had summarily repealed the rights of contest and of challenge.

More than that, his army of invasion now included a thousand or more Daergar from the Thunder Peaks, and a sizeable group – no one knew how many – of wild Klar, erratic and unpredictable but as determined as the rest to have a share in the treasures of the Daewar. It was the reward that Glome promised, in return for their support in the invasion of Daebardin, the stronghold beneath Sky’s End that none of them had ever seen. They had never seen it because no spy had ever managed to get past the Daewar guards. But the growing fan of rubble on the mountainside beneath the Daewar citadel told them that it was by now an extensive delve, and where Daewar delved, there were treasures.

All the clans knew of the wealth of the Daewar. The proud, arrogant gold-molders did more than display their wealth throughout Kal-Thax. They flaunted it. It was in the bright finery of their apparel, the burnished sheen of their armor, the adornment of their ox-carts, in the very way they carried themselves when they walked.

Many Theiwar and Daergar had seen the insides of Daewar pavilions at trade camps, and it was a joke among the other tribes that the Daewar so enjoyed their comforts that no Daewar would travel a mile without a ton or so of carpets, crystal-wear, and gold-inlaid furniture for his comfort while roughing it in the wilderness. A joke, it was, but not one told with laughter. It was one of the reasons that so many of the other dwarves hated the Daewar.

The Daewar were rich, and flaunted their wealth.

For that reason – and because he had convinced many of them that the Daewar intended to conquer them, it had been easy for Glome the Assassin to recruit an army to invade Daebardin. The opportunity to loot the Daewar was promise enough for most of them.

The Daewar had made a fatal error by delving into Sky’s End. Their old citadel on the shoulder of the mountain was small, but it was also well-placed and difficult to attack. Now, though, the Daewar were under the mountain – with only one way out. It was a perfect situation for a successful siege. Their subterranean city would be a trap for them once Glome’s army held the citadel.

If any among the invaders suspected that Glome the Assassin had reasons of his own for this venture – that he in fact intended to make himself king of all Kal-Thax – they were wise enough not to mention the idea.

So now they gathered on the night-dark slope of Sky’s End, thousands of armed Theiwar, Daergar, and a smattering of erratic, fanatical Klar, and just below them were the ramparts of the old citadel of the Daewar.

“I see no guards,” Slide Tolec muttered. “Where are they? There are always guards.”

“And always lights at night,” someone else noted. “The gold people are night-blind. But I see no lights.”

It was true. On the slope below, the spired citadel stood in darkness, silhouetted against the moonlit rubble-fields beyond. Only moon-shadows moved on its ramparts, darknesses among the patterns of red and white moonlight, sliding slowly inward as the moons Solinari and Lunitari crept higher in the spangled sky.

“Is it a trap?” one of the Daergar captains asked. “Do they somehow know we are here?”

“They know nothing,” Glome snapped. “The Daewar are tricky, but they don’t read minds or see in the dark. We have moved only by night since we assembled at the pits six days ago.”

“Then where are their guards?” the Daergar growled, his voice muffled by the slitted iron mask he wore. Some of the Daergar removed their masks at night, when the light did not pain them, but some chose to wear them even then, and the effect was disconcerting when they spoke – a voice coming from a faceless ovoid of dark metal whose only feature was a narrow slit in front of the hidden eyes.

“It doesn’t matter where they are,” Glome said. “Visible or not, they will be dead soon enough. Are the trundles prepared?”

“They’ve been in place since just after sunset,” Slide Tolec reminded him. “And they have been loaded for an hour. You can see them as well as we can.”

The trundles were Glome’s own plan – long, pegged-down nets that spanned a quarter mile of slopes above the Daewar citadel. The nets had been carried all the way from Theibardin and were set in place after darkness fell. Once they were in place, teams of dwarves had begun filling them with stones weighing forty to sixty pounds each. Hundreds of tons of stone now bulged the nets, and the keeper cables were as taut as iron bars.

“Then give the signal,” Glome commanded. “We are ready.”

“Hold!” someone called. “Look!”

Below the trundle nets, there was movement on the slope. At first it was furtive, hidden by shadows. Then into the moonlight ran a crowd of dwarves, leaping and shouting, heading downhill toward the silent Daewar citadel. There were a dozen or more of them – ragged, wild-haired creatures waving various weapons as they ran. Their cries were shouts of hatred, wild war cries that echoed from the slopes.

“Rust and tarnish!” Glome swore. “Those Klar … what do they think they’re doing?”

“Who knows what Klar think?” a Daergar warrior rumbled from behind his featureless mask. “But they will ruin everything.”

“No, they won’t,” Glome decided. “Slide! The signal!”

Slide Tolec put a short trumpet to his lips and blew a blast, then another. All up and down the net line, dwarves raised heavy axes above the keeper cables, and when Slide’s trumpet sounded again, they sliced downward. With a crash that grew like thunder, the nets collapsed and tons of stone plunged down the slope, picking up momentum with each yard. The dust that rose above the landslide was a dense cloud, billowing upward in the garish light of the moons. Beyond it, the thunder of falling, crashing stone drowned out the screams of the dozen or so Klar trapped ahead of the fall.

Again Slide Tolec sounded his trumpet, and the battle cries of thousands of Theiwar and Daergar rose above the tumult of falling stone crashing down upon the Daewar citadel. A torrent of dark shapes on the mountainside, Glome’s army charged down the rock-scoured slopes, following after the chaos they had unleashed.

Parts of the citadel still stood, broken spires thrusting skyward in the moonlit dust, but there were great holes in the structure where walls had fallen under the torrent of stone, and the Theiwar, Daergar, and remaining Klar poured through them, fanning out to occupy the old stronghold of the Daewar. Shouts of “Kill the Daewar!” rang and echoed, then died away in confused silence. Somewhere a querulous voice called, “Where are they? There’s no one here!”

For more than an hour, in angry silence, the invaders searched level after level of the Daewar’s mountainside city. They found nothing. The place was completely deserted. Not so much as a rug or piece of furniture remained.

It was by tracing the tracks of the ore carts back into the stone of Sky’s End, that they found the sealed gate where the fresh delving of the Daewar had begun. It was a circular slab of solid granite, twelve feet in diameter, set into the neck of a tunnel.

“The delvings.” Glome the Assassin decided. “They have completed their new city under the mountain and withdrawn to it.” He pointed at the granite slab. “Bring it down,” he commanded. “The Daewar are on the other side.”

They brought out their tools and set to work. Outside, beyond the wrecked walls of the old citadel of Daebardin, daylight came and went and came again as determined dwarves chipped away at the edges of the plug gate. Finally, though, it was loose and they attacked it with prybars. After a moment, the thing teetered outward and fell as dwarves scampered aside, then drew their weapons and poured through the opening.

Beyond should have been an underground city, a city filled with Daewar and Daewar treasures. Instead, there was only a tunnel – a huge, track-floored tunnel that receded southward toward the heart of Sky’s End.

A cluster of dark-blade-wielding Daergar turned to stare with blank, iron faces at the leader of the Theiwar. “So they are here?” one of them hissed. “Where, Theiwar?”

“Deeper,” Glome decided. “The Daewar prince said they were delving deep. We must follow this tunnel. Their new city is ahead somewhere.”

“It had better be,” a Daergar rumbled.

Mile after mile the tunnel ran, deeper and deeper into the stone core of the mountain. Almost featureless, except for widened caverns at regular intervals, where the telltale marks of pulled spikes – where cart-track had been pulled up – spread into double pairs. Here, in the Daewar’s delvings, the ore carts had been able to pass, laden carts rumbling outward, empties heading back into the mountain. With something like awe, the Theiwar studied these marks, as they studied the precise chiseling of the walls where stone had been removed a few feet at a time to bore the tunnel.

The huge tunnel, driving straight into the heart of a mountain, was impressive. It was not a thing beyond their understanding – many Theiwar were fair tunnelers – but it was a feat far larger than anything they had ever attempted, and the farther they went the more they realized the enormity of what the Daewar had done. If this mighty tunnel were no more than a road leading to their underground city, then what must the city be like?

After a few miles, dome’s army began to shrink as individuals and small groups, mostly Theiwar, held back, waited for the rest to pass, then quietly turned and went back the way they had come. It had occurred to many of them that if there were a city at the end of this road there must be far more Daewar than anyone had thought. The idea of attacking a tribe that outnumbered them, on its own ground, gave many a Theiwar second thoughts about the whole venture.

Few of the Daergar turned back. Driven by the intense, single-minded stubbornness of natural miners, the Daergar would go on, and some of the wild, erratic Klar with them.

Far into Sky’s End, Slide Tolec noticed that the Theiwar were far less numerous than they had been, and he edged aside, looking back along the great tunnel. Pretending to adjust his boots, he knelt beside a wall while the mixed army – still several thousand strong – marched past him.

When they had all gone by, he stood and glanced around. For a second he thought he was alone, then a shadow moved nearby, and a familiar voice said, “You, too, Slide Tolec?”

Brule Vaportongue stepped from shadows into the dim light of Slide’s oil-wick. “You have realized it, too, then?”

“Realized what?” Slide snapped the words. The half-Daergar dark-seeker had startled him, and he resented it.

“That it is time to leave this place.” Brule shrugged. “No Daewar fortune awaits us here. Only death. This road is not the entrance to a city. It is exactly what it seems. A road. The Daewar built it, and the Daewar have gone where it leads, and Glome the Assassin is going to his death.”

“You fear the Daewar?” Slide sneered.

“Not as much as I fear my half-kin.” Brule shrugged again, not reacting to the taunt. “I know the taste of the stubbornness that drives the Daergar. It is what Glome played on to get them to follow him. But I know a thing about that stubbornness that even Glome does not know.”

“And what is that?”

“The blood call of the Daewar,” Brule Vaportongue said, “can be opened, but not closed. My half-brothers there” — he waved in the direction the dwarven army had gone — “seek the blood of the Daewar. But if they are denied it, they will find other blood. The Daergar are like their blades. Once drawn, they will not be sheathed again until they have tasted blood.”

Thoughtfully, Slide Tolec gazed down the tunnel where the sounds of Glome’s invasion were fading. Then he adjusted his pack, weapons, and belts and turned away. “I’m tired of this,” he said. “I’m going home.”

“Good choice.” Brule Vaportongue nodded and fell into step with the Theiwar.

*

Glome’s dwindling army was twelve miles into the heart of Sky’s End when it reached the second blockade, a grating made of four-inch-thick bars of forged iron, beaten together in hammer welds.

Glome pounded on the barricade in a rage. “Cart track!” he shouted. “Rust and corrode the Daewar, they’ve made a gate of cart track!” Panting in frustration, he gestured angrily, “Open it!”

Other Theiwar and several Daergar came forward to peer at the gate, holding up torches. The light shone through the grating, gleaming on metalwork beyond where a pair of cable winches sat, beyond reach as were the spike-locks which sealed the gate to its deep slot in the cavern floor.

“We can’t open this,” a Daergar said. “It can only be opened from the other side.”

“Then cut it!” Glome roared.

“With what?” the Daergar asked, his voice a silky purr as he turned to face the Theiwar leader. “We brought no forging tools. No steel chisels or saws, only delving tools. You said that was all we would need.”

“Well, I didn’t know about this!”

“You didn’t know about a lot of things, Theiwar,” the Daergar purred. “You have wasted our time.” The blank iron mask turned slightly away then back, and Glome barely got his shield up in time to catch the dark-steel blade slicing toward his throat.

“Defend!” Glome shouted, blocking another cut with his own blade. “The Daergar have turned on us!”

In the blink of an eye, the big tunnel was a tumult of clangs and clatters, shouts and screams as dwarf attacked dwarf, hundreds on each side, their shadows huge on cavern walls in the murky light of fallen torches.

Glome dodged and parried, hampered by the fighting all around him. He thrust, cut, and spun, shield and sword flashing alternately as weapons and defense. All around him, Theiwar and Daergar were locked in ringing, mortal combat, and bright blood pooled on the tunnel’s stone floor. For long minutes Glome stood his ground, clearing space around him again and again, his booted feet treading the bodies of fallen allies and fallen enemies. Then he was borne down under a concerted rush of Daergar, with Theiwar defenders piling onto them from behind.

The battle raged before the mute iron gate, then spread back up the tunnel as dwarves fled, and other dwarves pursued. Hundreds lay dead in the howling darkness as blood-washed torches sputtered out, and a time came when the darkness was a silence as well.

The echoes faded northward as the battle continued there, going away, and in the wide cavern before the Daewar gate, nothing moved except the flickering small flame of a dropped lantern.

Then there was movement. Fallen bodies piled on the floor shifted, and shifted again, and a head was raised cautiously. For long moments the figure was still except for a blank, featureless face turning this way and that. Then he pushed bodies aside and climbed out. From helmet to boots he was drenched with blood, even the slitted iron mask dripping gore. Across its eye-slit was a deep furrow where it had deflected a sword cut.

He stood, looked around at the silent death littering the tunnel, then turned to the iron-bar gate and growled deep in his throat. With a curse he pulled away the mask from his face and flung it aside, then stooped to find his shield and blades.

The Daewar would pay for his humiliation. Someday, they would pay. Let them think – for now – that Glome the Assassin was dead. Let them all think that. They would learn otherwise some day. It was not the way of Glome the Assassin to die. It was his way to kill.

Through murder and manipulation, Glome the Assassin had become chieftain among the Theiwar of Theibardin, and being chieftain had given him a dream.

Glome intended to be king of all Kal-Thax, and it didn’t matter to him who he had to kill to get there.

Chapter 19

THE DEEPS

The Daewar explorer-spy, Urkhan, had died trying to chart the wonders beneath Cloudseeker Mountain. But in dying, he had given birth to a dream. Now Olim Goldbuckle looked upon the gigantic, dimly lighted cavern that was Urkhan’s legacy, and wondered for the first time whether even he, the prince of all the Daewar, were dwarf enough to make the dream come true.

To eyes accustomed to the contours of mountainsides and the limitations of delves, the cavern was mind-boggling. Even after seeing its wonders a hundred times, it was still breathtaking. Miles wide, its lower perimeter was a series of rocky shores running down to a clear-water subterranean lake. From the east shore, where the Daewar had begun the delving of quarters, the far shores were barely visible, even where the quartz light shafts were strong. But rising above the center of the lake was a funnel-like pillar of stone, widening toward the top where it blended into the great, vaulted reaches of the cavern’s ceiling.

Half a mile high, and wider than that at its top, the stalactite seemed a monumental pillar upon which the entire mountain might rest. In the varying light, the serrated surfaces of the thing glistened wetly, and water dripped from nodules along its sides.

“It is living stone,” Gem Bluesleeve breathed for the dozenth time, gazing in awe at the huge pillar in the distance. “The waters that created it still nourish it.”

“No waters created that,” old Slate Coldsheet rumbled. “It is a god’s work. Only Reorx could have managed such a creation.”

“Reorx had a little help from that big sinkhole between the Windweavers, then,” Olim Goldbuckle said. “Water creates stalactites, and the water must come from there.”

“Where does the wind come from?” Gem Bluesleeve asked, pointing out at the wave-flecked surface of the lake. “In all the days since we moved Daebardin here, the air has never been still.”

“The vents,” Olim Goldbuckle said, then glanced at Gem. “Oh, you hadn’t heard the scouts’ reports? It seems there are natural vents around the mountain’s flanks. They don’t know how many, yet, but one of them is south of here, right in the bottom of that walled valley that the Theiwar call Deadfall. And there are high shafts at the crest. Mica Diamondtoe believes there are upward vents around the sinkhole up there, right at the base of Galefang, and that it is the winds on the Windweavers that create the draft down here.”

“If there are vents that admit the wind,” Gem frowned, “then there are vents that will admit enemies.”

“As we find them, we will grate them.” Olim nodded. “Just as we did the road from Sky’s End.” He looked upward, where the sounds of delving and building were concentrated. Above the east shoreline of the big lake, the cavern walls rose in a series of stairlike levels, and it was here that the Daewar were digging in. Three separate levels of delvings were under way, and more were planned. Everywhere up the wall were Daewar – thousands of them visible at any time – digging away at the porous levels of stone, piercing into the depths beyond the natural cavern, hollowing out cubicles that connected with other cubicles. Places for people to live, places for exchanging goods, places for councils and gatherings – the beginnings of a city.

From the delves, along a series of roads and tunnels, ore carts rumbled, carrying select rubble from the delves to other, distant caverns which would be farming warrens when their fields were perfected. It was in those caverns that Daewar daredevils were harnessing the power of the tractor worms to draw sleds to crush the stone that would be the basis of topsoil when it was completed.

In the meantime, foraging parties were roaming the caverns, gathering tons of edible fungus, various kinds of meat that no one questioned too far, and a dozen varieties of vining fruits which grew naturally in these subterranean realms, wherever there was light from a quartz layer.

“It is magnificent,” Olim Goldbuckle said, surveying his new realm. “It goes beyond anything that any of us dreamed.”

Slate Coldsheet shook his grizzled head, frowning. “This place is big, right enough. But I’d feel better if I knew how people are supposed to live here.”

The others looked at him curiously. “Like people live anywhere else, old one,” Gem said. “By using what we have found.”

“But what have we found?” the old delvemaster spread his arms, turning. “A place. A place with water and worms.”

“And fresh air and sunlight,” Gem added.

“And – Reorx willing – defendable against invasion,” the prince pointed out. “What is bothering you, Delvemaster?”

“Food and fuel,” Slate said flatly. “Oh, our foragers are feeding us now, but those supplies will run out. And wood. We need timber, Sire. We will always need timber, and no forests grow beneath mountains.”

Olim scratched his beard, looking up at the delves. Without timber for beams, they would be shallow and unreliable. Doors would be a problem, as well, and furnishings.

“And rich ores,” the delvemaster continued. “There are no real lodes here, Sire. And no way to reach the rich veins to the south.”

“We can still trade,” Olim told him. “Our road will serve.”

“Fifty miles of tunnel, going the wrong direction? And that isn’t all.” The old dwarf pointed downshore, where long lines of Daewar were operating a bucket brigade. They were carrying water from the lake to the delvings, where it was lifted by ropes. “In Daebardin, Sire, we collected water from above. Cisterns and flows. Here we have to carry it from below. It is not efficient. Your people don’t like it.”

“Oh? They are grumbling, then? And what else don’t they like?”

“Many of them don’t like it here,” Slate told him. “Gil Gemcrust and his weavers are upset because there is nothing to weave. The artisans wear gloomy faces because the forges are cold. The woodcrafters … most of them are there in the water line because they have nothing else to do. And not an hour ago I heard Winna Redthread complaining that the only grain left in the stores is oats.”

“Winna Redthread!” Olim spat. “That female would be desolate if she didn’t have something to complain about.”

“It is the delvers, too, Sire. And their families. There is much discontent. They say people are supposed to delve into mountainsides, not from the bellies of mountains. They say people are supposed to live inward from outside, not outward from inside.”

Olim Goldbuckle felt a growl coming on, and stifled it to a rumble in his throat. Leave it to a gray-headed delvemaster to burst the bubbles of dreams! Impatiently, he turned away. “We’ll think of something,” he said.

It was a logging crew, outbound through the great tunnel, that found the remains of the Theiwar and Daergar who had died fighting each other beyond the iron grate. Hundreds of bodies littered the siding cave, and others beyond. The Daewar wandered for a mile or more, gawking at the fallen dwarves, then turned around and went back to report.

Gem Bluesleeve led a company of warriors to investigate, all the way back to the north slope of Sky’s End. There he found the wreckage of the citadel and surmised what had occurred.

Olim Goldbuckle listened to the reports with his council, then sent parties to remove the bodies in the passage and to reseal the tunnel at its far end.

“Sky’s End is behind us,” he told the council of thane elders. “We came from there to here and will not go back. We will find other ways to the outside. We will explore the paths of Urkhan. If there are not suitable routes from these caverns, then we will drill our own routes, just as we drilled our passage here.”

Late autumn lay on the Kharolis Mountains when Daewar explorers probing upward broke through into some old, nearly deserted lairs of the Theiwar – lairs that had been worn out and largely abandoned, high on the south shoulder of the peak called Cloudseeker. A few Theiwar were there, and a few Daewar fell to stones and dark blades in the first moments of penetration, but the defense mounted by the Theiwar was pitifully small. In this entire cave system, only a few hundred Theiwar remained, mostly women and children and the very old. But among them at the time were some Theiwar leaders arranging for food supplies. The Daewar troop that followed the delvers through, led by Gem Bluesleeve, subdued and disarmed them with little effort.

And it was then that Olim Goldbuckle learned that the human intruders had regrouped and attacked again out on the eastern slopes.

Along a wide front, up through the foothills from the plains, thousands upon thousands of humans now mounted an invasion upon Kal-Thax. Pushed westward by the dragon war in the east, shunned and harried by the organized realm of Ergoth, new hordes of humans – and other races among them – had found themselves blocked by the domains of the dwarves and had reacted as humans do. They had fallen back, milled around in confusion until there were enough of them massed there, then they had organized themselves and attacked.

With only the Theiwar, Daergar, and Klar to patrol the eastern borders of Kal-Thax, the invaders had pushed far into the passes, farther than they ever had managed to go before. Taking advantage of the latest war between Theiwar and Daergar – with Klar intervening on both sides – the humans and their allies had established a cordon from Grand Gorge to the Cliffs of Shalomar and begun a series of bloody raids against the dwarves.

A tenuous treaty stood now between the Theiwar and the Daergar, linked in their defense of Kal-Thax against the outsiders. Most of the warriors of both tribes were on the eastern slopes, fighting.

“Rust!” a thunderous Olim Goldbuckle roared when he heard this report. “Rust and tarnish! Daewar, to arms! The Pact of Kal-Thax calls!”

Before him, three Theiwar captives stood in wide-eyed awe, staring around them at the immense cavern to which they had been brought blindfolded.

“What … what is this place?” Slide Tolec asked finally.

At his arm, a Daewar guard grinned. “It may be your last, best hope, Theiwar,” he whispered. “If we do not beat off the outsiders this time, you and your kind had better hope that our prince will allow you sanctuary in New Daebardin.”

*

The war that raged along the east slopes of the Kharolis range was more than a war. It was an ongoing clash between the stubborn, immovable determination of the dwarven nations who had sworn in the name of Reorx to allow no outsiders into Kal-Thax, and the desperate, irresistible drive of thousands upon thousands of displaced creatures who had nowhere else to go.

The first Daewar company to pour down the slopes of Cloudseeker to reinforce the ragtag army of Theiwar, Daergar, Klar – and, now and then, even clots of terrified Aghar, the reclusive gully dwarves, caught up in a skirmish – ran headlong into the fury of a band of ogres fighting alongside humans. Outnumbered a dozen to one by the Daewar, the ogres yet managed to decimate the company before taking to their heels. In that one clash, seventeen Daewar died and four others were wounded. Five ogres were killed, one captured, and none knew how many were injured.

From their towering captive, Gem Bluesleeve learned that the ogres had fled a place called Bloten, driven out by a dragon seeking a base from which to fly against elves in the east.

All up and down the slopes of the Kharolis Mountains, dwarves were fighting against humans, ogres, and – beneath the Cliffs of Shalomar – even some squadrons of goblins. The dwarven lines held day after day, but Olim Goldbuckle of the Daewar, Slide Tolec of the Theiwar, and Vog Ironface of the Daergar all knew that they could not hold for long unless they could somehow turn from defense to attack. Autumn lay upon the mountains, and the advancing ices might give the dwarves a brief reprieve – but only if they could hold the invaders east of the frontal ranges. If the outsiders made it into the high mountains and found shelter in some of the deep valleys hidden there, then by spring, Kal-Thax would be indefensible.

It was Olim Goldbuckle’s captain, Gem Bluesleeve, who led the first assault down the slopes, hoping to break the cordon.

With three hundred Daewar and a hundred each of Theiwar and Daergar behind him, Bluesleeve – leading companies of his elite Golden Hammer guard – attacked downslope in phalanx pattern, and the humans there, mostly wild Sackmen from the northern plains, found themselves faced by a moving wall of iron shields from which naked blades flicked like snakes’ tongues. For a moment, the humans held the line, but only for a moment. Flanked by howling, slashing Klar, the phalanx punched through the human defense and spread into a broad wedge of swords and shields, marching across the bodies of fallen foe.

In disarray, the Sackmen fled down the slopes, and the dwarves pursued … and ran headlong into something few of them had ever seen before.

Running as though from death itself, the mass of humans spread across the rising plains and disappeared behind a line of tall, ominous figures – fighters of Ergoth, armored from head to toe, sitting upon armored horses, and bringing long lances down for a charge.

On the open ground, the dwarves were no match for mounted Ergothians led by knights. More than a third of Gem Bluesleeve’s command fell there, before the rest escaped back up the slopes. The line of armored riders pursued only as far as the rising ridges and stopped there. But one of them raised his faceplate to call after the Golden Hammer, “Stay in your mountains, dwarves! Defend yourselves there if you will, but do not bring your problems to us!”

Below the retreating dwarves, the armored ones turned methodically and began sweeping the plains, turning Sackmen back toward the mountains.

Atop a spire, Olim Goldbuckle watched the rout and shook his head sadly. “We have lost our one advantage,” he told Slide Tolec. “Those people do not want our enemies any more than we do. Kal-Thax is lost, and there is nowhere to turn but to the deeps beneath the stone.”

“We Theiwar have no deeps,” Slide said. “What of us?”

A few feet away, a featureless mask turned toward them. “Nor do we, Daewar,” the voice of Vog Ironface said, sounding like hollow thunder. “Unless you think we can defend mineshafts.”

Olim looked from one to the other of them, then fixed his level gaze on the Theiwar. “You once told me that you believed we were creating a fortress,” he reminded him. “Do you remember?”

“That was a trick,” Slide frowned. “You let us believe that, to divert us from what you were really doing.”

“Nonetheless.” Olim shrugged. “We now have deeps, and there is room there for Theiwar” — he glanced aside, dislike plain on his face as he looked at the dark slit in front of Vog’s eyes — “and even for Daergar. The Daewar will not be the ones to break the Pact of Kal-Thax. But the deeps we have found are ours, and only Daewar shall rule there.”

The Daergar started to answer, then stepped back with a gasp as the air behind Olim Goldbuckle crackled, and a figure appeared there – an ancient, tattered form leaning on a two-tined spear. Eyes that were like darkness gazed out from beneath a mane of silver hair. The phantom shimmered, varying from translucent to almost transparent. It seemed to stand before them, but its feet didn’t quite touch the ground.

“The highest of the deep shall rule,” a cold voice whispered. “Only the highest of the deep.”

Olim stared at the apparition. It was the figure from his troubling dreams. “You!” he muttered.

“Yes,” the cold voice said, then seemed to be talking to no one at all. “Delve the deeps of dwarvendom. Those who rule have yet to come. You will know them when they do. You will know them by the drum.”

Dumbly, Theiwar and Daergar gawked at the apparition. Then Olim Goldbuckle choked out, “Who, then? What drum?”

The figure turned slightly and became transparent. “That drum,” it whispered, still turning, toward the plains beyond the mountain slopes. “That drum.” It turned a bit more and was gone.

Yet on the freshening east wind, sweeping across the seething plains below the Kharolis Mountains, there was a sound. Faint with distance, far beyond the massed confusion of invaders below Kal-Thax, still it was there, and they all heard it.

The rhythmic, heartbeat sound of marching drums.

The dwarves weren’t the only ones who heard the distant sound. Down through the foothills, marauders turned their faces eastward, and out on the plains a rank of Ergothians wheeled and rode away, seeking the source of this new thing.

Gem Bluesleeve saw his chance, and he took it. At his command, hundreds of Daewar stormed down the slopes, with Theiwar and Daergar at their flanks. Confused and surprised, and without the Ergothians behind them, human companies on the slopes turned and fled. Within hours, the Golden Hammer had established a defense perimeter below the shoulders of the high peaks.

Part V

THE LIFE TREE PEOPLE

The Eastern Border

of Kal-Thax

Century of Wind

Decade of Oak

Fall, Year of Copper

Chapter 20

FORGING BONDS

High mountains were visible in the distance when the Hylar made long camp on the banks of a wooded stream. Though still far away, the mountains stood blue in the western sky and called to them, like echoes of Thoradin in their hearts.

While the campsite was being cleared and fires prepared, Colin Stonetooth and others climbed a knoll and looked to the west. Tera Sharn stood at her father’s shoulder as he tested the winds with ears and nose, the knelt to look at the soil beneath the lush grasses. He pulled a sprig of grass, chewed on it thoughtfully, then scraped earth from beneath and tasted it. The land was rich and fertile, as much of southeastern Ergoth was. But it was land suited to humans more than to dwarves.

But beyond, where the high mountains rose blue in the autumn light, the vista that tugged at him and the winds sweeping down from there spoke of high meadows and honest stone, of steeps and caverns and mineral deposits … of dwarven places.

“We will remain here long enough for the animals to graze and the foresters to lay in stores,” Colin Stonetooth decreed. “Let the crafters work their forges and the weavers work their wools. When next we set out our anvils, it will be within those mountains yonder.”

“Kal-Thax,” said Mistral Thrax. “Kal-Thax is there, in those mountains. The place of Everbardin.”

“Then tell our bonded knight to lay out his fields and complete his drills,” the chieftain said. “He is human and will not go to Kal-Thax, but we will not pause again until we are there.”

The site of the camp was well chosen. It offered ripe fields for harvest and graze, wood for fires and forges, and water for bathing and the tending of stock. The Hylar had come far in learning the ways of combat under the tutelage of Glendon Hawke, but there were still more drills to be accomplished, and time was needed for that.

But there was still another – and primary – reason why the great caravan of the Hylar stopped. It was time for the wedding of the chieftain’s daughter, Tera Sharn, and the captain of guards, Willen Ironmaul.

Through a thousand miles of wilderness, and even before in the place that had been Thorin, the people had watched the romance between the robust guardsman and the dark-eyed princess develop. Handil the Drum had become legend among the Hylar, and Tolon the Muse was far behind, ruling a place the Hylar would never again see. Cale Greeneye was well-loved among his father’s people, but was strange to them, preferring other ways to dwarven ways.

That left Tera Sharn as one for the people to idolize, and idolize her they did. For his part, Willen had traveled the past hundred miles with a wide, silly grin parting his whiskers and sometimes acted as though his head were lost in the clouds.

It was time for a wedding, and the Hylar set it up in great style. In a clearing they erected a large, ornate forge with crested stone arches above it representing the strength of mountains, and four silver-inlaid bellows, representing the four seasons’ winds that sang across high peaks.

Throughout one morning, most of the tribe worked to make things ready, the women shouting orders, the men running here and there, doing as they were told. Foresters selected wood for the ceremonial forge – seven varieties of wood, representing the seven precious metals: hickory for steel, symbol of flexibility and wisdom; oak for iron, for strength; maple for tin, for unswerving devotion; cedar for copper, the metal of the heart; ash for nickel, for endurance and faith; multi-colored pine for bronze, symbolic of blendings, and yellow hedge for gold, representing the lasting comforts of home and family.

A ceremonial bronze hammer had been forged for the occasion, and a set of copper tongs with rosewood grips.

When the sun was high in the bright sky, the entire tribe assembled around the forge, in which bright coals glowed cherry-red. The Hylar guard – trimmed, shined, and brushed, each warrior mounted on his best tall horse – spread in formation to line a pathway, along which road came Colin Stonetooth and the Ten, followed by a dazed-looking Willen Ironmaul flanked by guardsmen. Sedately, they rode to the forge clearing and dismounted.

For a moment there was silence, the only sounds those of the breeze, songbirds, and an excited kender voice saying, “Wow! Would you look at that! It’s …” The voice stopped abruptly as strong dwarven hands were clapped over the kender’s mouth. Softly, then, a drum was tapped. Then another, and another, picking up the rhythm. All around the clearing, drummers tapped a soft riff on muffled vibrars as another pathway opened and a dozen dwarf girls came through, strewing handsful of steel coins and arrowheads. Behind them walked Tera Sharn, wearing her finest kilt and lace sandals, a bodice embroidered with sunbursts, and a long, quilted cloak of the finest web-silk fabric. Her hair was tied high on her head and adorned by a copper comb.

Several of Willen Ironmaul’s escorts stepped close to him, ready to support him in case his knees began to shake.

Colin Stonetooth strode to the forge and raised his hands. “People of the people,” he intoned. “People of the highest place, people of the Hylar! Gather now in the sight of Reorx, maker of all people, Reorx who must certainly watch over these, his most beloved people, who were created last and best —”

“That isn’t right!” a high voice protested from aside. “Dwarves aren’t the …” Hard hands muffled the kender again, and a deep voice whispered, “Get that little nuisance out of here!”

“Who were created last and are therefore best,” Colin Stonetooth elaborated. “People of the Hylar, observe and witness. Two among us have chosen to bond as husband and wife. Willen Ironmaul, Captain of the General Guard, has chosen Tera Sharn, ah … my daughter. And she has chosen him as well. Does anyone here assembled wish … or dare … to challenge?”

On cue, Tera Sharn raised a flower-garlanded javelin – ornate but nonetheless deadly – and held it high, turning full circle, her eyes meeting those of each unmarried young woman in the crowd. One of the guards nudged Willen Ironmaul, who seemed to snap out of a trance and raised his sword, where every male in the crowd could see it.

There being no challengers, Colin Stonetooth nodded. The bride and groom put down their weapons, joined hands and stepped closer to the forge, feeling its pleasant heat on their faces. At its foot stood a gold-embossed eighty-pound anvil, wrapped in ribbons. Willen squatted, hoisted the anvil and set it on the forge’s rim, between the ceremonial hammer and the ceremonial tongs.

One of the guard escorts and one of Tera Sharn’s pretty attendants stepped to the couple’s sides and reached beyond them with long, iron tongs. From the coals they lifted small, slim ingots – one of silver and one of gold, heated and glowing. Carefully, they laid these atop the anvil, one across the other, and stepped back.

Tera Sharn picked up the rosewood-handled copper tongs and gripped the hot ingots at their center. She lifted them, looked up at Willen and recited, “May the halves of our joining be equal and strong.” She returned the heated ingots to the anvil.

Willen stared down at her, trying not to grin. He lifted the hammer. “And may they never be separated,” he said. With one swift blow, he smote the joined ingots, forever welding them into a single metal cross – the cross of the pillars of the world.

A rousing cheer went up from the crowd, and Colin Stonetooth raised his hands to silence it. Then he looked at Willen and Tera. “Will you exchange tokens?” he asked.

Tera Sharn reached into her bodice and pulled out a pendant and chain, beautifully crafted from nickel steel. Standing on tiptoe, she reached high and dropped the loop over Willen’s head, letting the pendant settle on his breast. It was a single star. “For my love,” she whispered.

Willen, red-cheeked above his swept-back beard, reached to the pouch at his belt and fumbled inside it. “And for mine —” he started, then stopped, his eyes widening as he fumbled in his pouch. Suddenly he turned, pushed through the crowd, and strode to the side of the clearing, a thunderous frown on his brow. To the dwarves holding the stifled kender he said, “Give me that little thief!”

The instant his mouth was free, Castomel Springheel hissed, “Thief? Who are you calling thief, you overgrown —”

Willen grasped the little creature, lifted him, turned him upside down, and shook him as one might shake out a cleaning cloth. The kender yelled, and things rained down from him, from the large pouch at his belt, from other, hidden pouches, from the neck of his green shirt, from everywhere. A pair of bright daggers clattered to the ground, followed by a spur, a dozen or so bright beads, various bits of stone, some rolls of foolscap, a chunk of hard bread, a bit of cheese, an egg, a ruby clasp, a pair of bracelets, a chained pendant. …

“There it is,” Willen rasped. Dropping Castomel Springheel unceremoniously, he picked up the pendant, turned a fierce scowl on the sprawled kender, then strode back to the forge carrying his token.

Behind him, voices were raised in surprise and anger. “That’s my clasp! I wondered where that was.” “Whose spur is this?” “Those are Mica’s bracelets, he’s been looking all over for those!” And a high-pitched kender voice, “Keep your hands off that cheese! That’s my lunch!”

At the forge, Willen resumed his place as though there had been no interruption. He slipped the pendant’s tooled chain over Tera Sharn’s head. “For my love,” he said.

As his pendant was a star, the one he gave to her was a finely engraved oval of rich, pink granite. They smiled at each other. By this exchange, she promised him heaven and he promised her the world.

Once more, Colin Stonetooth raised his hands. “These two people are husband and wife!” he proclaimed. Then, “Well, why is everybody still standing around? Go about your business!”

At the far side of the clearing, towering over the dwarves around him, Glendon Hawke removed his light helm and ran long fingers through his red hair. He was impressed. He had seen human weddings, and some had been quite elaborate, but he had never seen a ceremony more thoroughly symbolic or better performed than this. “Sometimes dwarves are almost human,” he muttered.

Beside him a burly Hylar swung around. “You watch your mouth!” the dwarf said.

Nearby, Cas Springheel reassembled his scattered belongings, muttering under his breath. “If that’s how they’re going to act, I can take a hint,” he said. “I’ve been kicked out of better places than this.” Smoothing down his clothing, he returned his pack sling to his shoulder, picked up the fork-ended walking stick he had been toying with lately – he had an idea that a fine weapon could be made from it – and executed an angry bow to no one in particular. “Please don’t be offended by my departure,” he piped. “I’m only leaving because dwarves are really dull. Especially when they get up on their high horses.”

The direction he chose in leaving took him through most of the milling crowd, and his pack was bulging nicely again when he stalked out of the Hylar camp.

*

It was four days later that Cale Greeneye rode in at a gallop. Past the drill fields he spurred, and ranks of armed Hylar stopped their weapons practice to watch him pass. At the center of the compound he brought Piquin to a sliding stop before Colin Stonetooth’s hut. The chieftain appeared at the doorway as his son vaulted from his saddle, not bothering with the mounting ladder.

“Sire!” Cale’s eyes glittered with excitement as he pointed westward. “Humans coming this way. Mounted and armed, and in force. Three hundred or more! They know we’re here and are heading for us.”

“Are they hostile?” Colin beckoned, and the Ten hurried off to collect and saddle their horses.

“I’d say so,” Cale nodded. “Gran Molden crept close enough to hear some of them talking. They’ve been in a fight with dwarves, somewhere west of here. They were trying to go up into the mountains, and the dwarves attacked them. Gran says the humans know we are dwarves and are out for revenge, as though they think we’re the same ones who attacked them.”

“They don’t know one dwarf from another,” Colin rumbled, shaking his head. He had known humans who had been friends. People almost as civilized as dwarves. People he had trusted, so much that he had not wanted to believe there were enemies among them. Now, it seemed, humans were usually the enemy. “Just as we sometimes fail to distinguish one human from another,” he muttered. Despite all that had happened, he still found himself clinging to the idea that there were decent humans, humans with a sense of – he sought a word and it came to him – a sense of honor. People like the strange knight among them now.

Like Glendon Hawke. Colin turned to look for the human and found he was already on his way, long legs sprinting, curious to find out what was happening.

“Sir Knight,” Colin faced him, cross-armed, “your kin are coming to call. Where do you stand?”

“What kin? Describe them.”

Quickly, Cale Greeneye described the humans approaching beyond the near hills. “They are dark, hairy men,” he said. “They wear some armor, but it is rough-cut and tarnished. They wear ornaments in their hair and on their helms and braid their beards. Some wear leather cloaks, split at the back. They have many sorts of weapons. Their horses are small, quick, and wiry, and are painted with symbols.”

Glendon listened intently, then shook his head. “No kin of mine,” he said icily. “Not Ergothians, not even from the northern realms. They sound like Cobar. Hill people from the east. No better than Sackmen and Sandrunners, most of them. But they are ferocious fighters, and they take what they want if they can.” He glanced around at the dwarves nearby. “My guess is they want your horses, your arms, and your armor … and any other valuables you have. Cobar are notorious robbers, and you people wear fortunes on your shoulders.”

“Gran Molden says they’re angry,” Cale told him. “They’ve fought dwarves west of here.”

“They tried to enter Kal-Thax, then,” Glendon nodded.

Colin spun toward him. “You know of Kal-Thax?”

“Of course,” Glendon shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody? It’s where the dwarves live. Well, most of them, anyway.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about Kal-Thax?” Mistral Thrax rasped. “That’s the place we’re looking for!”

Glendon shrugged again. “You didn’t ask.”

“Well, we’re asking now!”

“Kal-Thax is in the Kharolis Mountains,” the knight said. “West of here. The dwarves there deny entrance to all outsiders. They are fierce and pretty primitive – except maybe the bright-colored ones. They seem fairly civilized sometimes, though they are as hostile as the rest to anybody trying to cross their borders. If the Cobar tangled with them, I can see why they’d be angry.”

“Two of those coming are different,” Cale said. “They wear full armor, like yours, and there are pennants on their lances. Crossed swords on fields of white.”

“Knights,” Glendon breathed. “And they ride with Cobar?”

“Not with them,” Cale corrected. “They are off to one side. It’s more as though they are watching them than riding with them.”

“Ah.” Glendon nodded. “I thought as much.”

Again, Colin Stonetooth asked, “Where do you stand, human? By your oath, are you with us or against us?”

“By my oath,” the knight said, “I am neither. I pledged to teach your people what I can. I have done that. There is no more that I can teach. I will take no part in your test.”

“Test?”

“The Cobar, Sire. You cannot escape them, and I think they will attack you. It will be interesting to see what you have learned from my efforts.”

“Interesting? By Reorx, I …”

“I will stand aside and watch,” the knight said flatly. “I have kept my bargain with you. Now will you keep yours with me?”

“What?”

“To release me from service and return my belongings to me.”

Glendon glanced westward. A haze of dust was visible, rising above the nearest hill, and on the hilltop were mounted humans, more and more of them.

“Keep your belongings,” the Hylar chieftain rasped. “You already have them back anyway. I’ll release you when I know more.”

The Cobar men came at a charge, heading for the heart of the dwarves’ camp, and were within a hundred yards when a hail of sling-stones whistled through their front ranks. The charge broke in momentary confusion, then regrouped, the marauders wheeling to continue their attack. But they were met by a solemn rank of armored dwarves mounted high on great horses. Before the men could charge again, a counter-charge bore into them, and men and horses fell before the disciplined fighting dwarves like wheat to the sickle.

Thundering through the ranks of the Cobar, wheeling and driving through again, Willen Ironmaul’s guards pressed the humans, giving them no time to regroup and no room to maneuver. In precision drill the Hylar fighters whirled and swept, this way and then that, cleaving and punishing the marauders. And at each clash, the weapons were different. Lances first, then swords, then one of the tactics that Glendon Hawke had never taught them, a swerving charge on wheeling mounts which seemed to have no riders – until they turned, and the dwarves clinging to the horses’ sides lashed out with deadly hammers and axes.

And through it all, a continuing roil of drums set the pace and called the plays.

Colin Stonetooth and the Ten were everywhere, a separate, compact fighting machine of iron hooves, edged shields, steel blades, axes, and hammers.

Upstream, at a ford on the creek, Glendon Hawke lowered his faceplate and tipped down the point of his lance. “Sirs!” he called to the two bright-armored knights across from him. “This is not a good time to cross this stream, I assure you!”

They hesitated, trying to recognize the blue-plumed figure challenging them. He was not one of them, by his dress, but his posture spoke of great skill and his manner was like their own. One of them raised a hand in careful salute. “You side with dwarves against humans, Sir Freelance?”

“I take no sides here,” Glendon called back. “And do you, Sirs, side with Cobar? Against anybody?”

“Of course not!”

“Then by your leave, Sirs, let us just watch the test … me from here, and you from over there.”

The battle was over in minutes. With splendid precision and great skill the Hylar swept the field until the only humans upright were those running away. At a trumpet call the Hylar regrouped. There were some missing, but only a few.

“Let them go.” Colin Stonetooth waved after the fleeing humans. “They can spread the word that it is best to leave Hylar alone.” He turned to glance at the stream, where Glendon Hawke still held the ford. The strange knights were turning, riding away.

Followed only by the Ten, Colin Stonetooth rode down to the stream and wheeled to face Glendon. “Why did you intervene?” he demanded.

“I did not intervene,” the knight said calmly. “And neither did anyone else. Congratulations on your test. I can teach you nothing more. Do you release me?”

Without answering, Colin Stonetooth wheeled his mount and started back to camp. “Bring that human to me at supper,” he told Jerem Longslate. “And bring the thing the steelmaster has prepared.”

*

In the evening, Glendon Hawke was brought before Colin Stonetooth, and again the entire tribe assembled. The knight looked around him at a sea of solemn, expressionless dwarves and frowned. He had expected the Hylar to keep their bargain, but who knew what dwarves were likely to do. He felt disappointed, though. He had thought – he had been so sure! – that in learning the skills, they had also absorbed the aspects of chivalry – the sense of rightness and honor that were part of the skills. It should be as clear to them now as to him, he thought, the way of the lance – the difference between right and wrong.

Colin Stonetooth gazed up at the man icily. “Kneel before me, human,” the dwarf said. “I’m getting a cramp in my neck.”

With a shrug, Glendon complied. He would not bow, but he would kneel.

Colin Stonetooth held out his hand. “Give me your sword,” he demanded.

Glendon hesitated and heard the whisper of half-drawn blades all around him. Slowly he drew his sword, reversed it, and handed it over. The Hylar chieftain took it and set it aside, then reached around, picked up a wrapped blade, and held it before him, peeling the fabric away.

Glendon blinked, and his eyes went wide. In size and shape the sword was almost identical to his own. In length and taper, in shape of pommel and curve of guard, it was an exact twin. But there the similarity ended. This sword was exquisite, a work of the finest craft he had ever seen. Its blade glistened in the light, its razor edges as finely honed as a cleric’s shaving blade. Its hilt was of polished blackwood, inlaid with fine, elaborate patterns of silver and gold. And in the crest of its nickel-steel pommel was a perfect blue-white diamond the size of a cloak button.

Colin Stonetooth held the sword out to him, hilt-forward. “We have learned from you, Sir Glendon Hawke,” the dwarf said. “I think we have only begun to realize how much we have learned. Your pledge is kept, and with this token I complete mine. You are free of service, Sir Knight. And this sword is yours. It is the finest of our craft. It will never fail you. Take it and go, with the thanks of the Hylar.”

Chapter 21

ELVEN ENCOUNTER

The mountains rose ahead and on both sides as Cale Greeneye and his adventurers scouted the trail, just within sound of the marching drums. Here the rising plains formed a natural pathway, funneling between high ridges toward the thrusting peaks westward. Ahead and beyond, range after range of mountains rose into the distance, each more distant silhouette bluer than the one before and rising higher into the sky.

The western plains seemed jammed with people – humans, mostly – but their encampments were scattered and aloof from one another and well out from the rising mountains. Cale and his scouts had encountered no trouble in slipping through, and now the foothills rose around them and the mountains ahead.

It was a majestic vista, crowned by the farthest and highest of the ranges ahead. There were the highlands and the peaks rising above them. On the right, blue with distance like a snow-crowned monarch, the tallest peak seemed to pierce the very sky, to shear it away as though there were no sky beyond.

To its left and straight ahead as the valley pointed was a massive mountain that seemed to dominate the view. Not as tall as the sky-ender north of it, it was far wider and was topped by three giant crags like great fangs or spearheads. Mists rolled and swirled around these spires, as grain rises in a broth when stirred by a spoon. Drifts of cloud danced there like threads weaving themselves in tapestries.

Farther south, bending away beyond the flank of that cloud-stirring mountain, was yet another giant rise, a rugged, saw-toothed eminence capped by double peaks.

“Those three crags up there” — Mica Rockreave pointed ahead — “stand like beacons, inviting us onward.”

“Too inviting for my taste.” Gran Molden frowned. “If I were going to lay a trap for travelers, that’s where I would put it, because that’s where they would go.”

“Are you thinking of laying a trap, Gran?” Cale Greeneye teased.

“I’m thinking of avoiding the traps of others,” Gran snapped. “See how this valley narrows ahead, climbing toward that widest crest? And how the cloud-comb crags beckon? Anyone coming this way would be tempted to take that path.”

“Let’s not forget what the knight told us,” Coal Bellmetal put in. “Kal-Thax is a sealed land. No outsiders are allowed in, and those who try to enter rarely return. The people of Kal-Thax don’t want visitors.”

“He also said the people there are dwarves, like us.”

“He said they are dwarves. He didn’t say they are like us.”

“Well, dwarves or not,” — Flint Cokeras tapped a hard fist against his armor-plated chest — “no one is going to stop the Hylar without a fight.”

Cale Greeneye shook his head, tightening rein to ease Piquin’s long stride. “You’re always spoiling for a fight, Flint. But why fight, if you don’t have to? Look over there, on the flank of that ridge.”

They looked to the right, shading their eyes. “What do you see?” Flint asked.

“Look closely,” Cale said, pointing. “There. On the slope. There is fresh stone there. Bits of stone have been moved, and the pattern is upward, like a trail. Someone else has distrusted this valley. They’ve made another trail, going the same way, but with better cover.”

“Wise, I’d say,” Shard Feldspar squinted, beginning to see what Cale saw. “But who would lay a trail so dim? No dwarf did that. And no human would ever be able to follow it. Maybe we’d better take a look.”

Cale turned, listening. The faint, distant drums told him that the main march was still miles away. “All right. We have time.” Nudging Piquin, he led to the right, the others following.

The upward trail was dim indeed. But for Cale’s knack for seeing what was out of place, they would not have been able to follow it. Upward it led, along the flank of a rising ridge, concealed from view except for those upon it. The only signs that anyone had ever gone this way were so subtle that only a sharp-eyed dwarf might have seen them – a bit of stone turned slightly from alignment with its imprint, a smudge on a ledge where something had scraped against the rock, a bit of gravel sunk more deeply in sand than its own weight would account for.

At a bend, Cale climbed down from Piquin’s saddle and squatted to taste the stone of an outcrop. “Well, someone has been along here,” he said. “But I can’t tell who.”

He was just reaching for his mounting ladder when Gran Molden’s tense voice said, “Don’t move, Cale. We have a problem.”

He turned slowly and froze. A dozen or more lithe figures stood on the trail, above and below them. Without sound, they had appeared there, only yards away, and the dwarves found themselves looking down the shafts of deadly arrows in drawn bows.

Cale gaped at the somber archers. For an instant, he had thought they were humans. But now he knew better. “Elves,” he muttered. Slowly and carefully he stepped away from Piquin, raising his hands away from his weapons. The other dwarves, in their saddles, did the same.

From uphill, more and more elves appeared, emerging soundlessly from the brush and stones of the mountainside. The dwarves stared around at them, intensely aware of the steady arrows trained on them from all sides. They had seen elves before. In past times, a few elves had come to Balladine to trade – aloof, stately people in the flowing robes and spider-silk-fine garments of the Silvanesti, and now and then a silent, furtive Kagonesti from the deep forests south of the ledgelands.

But these were different, somehow. Their garments were mostly soft leathers and rough weaves, blending with the colors of the land. Their features were neither the cold, aloof faces of Silvanesti nor the weirdly painted, intense faces of Kagonesti. These were elves, but another kind of elves.

“Hold your arrows,” Cale said cautiously. “We mean no threat to you.”

“Nor will you ever, dwarf,” the nearest one said icily. The drawn bow aligned itself on Cale’s throat, and he could almost feel the broad, razor-edged arrowhead piercing his flesh.

Then another voice came, softly but with authority. “Hold, Demoth! These people are not of Kal-Thax.”

Cale turned. Among the elves now above them on the rise – hundreds of them, it seemed – one had stepped forward. Lithe and graceful as a perfect sapling in fall, she paused with one slender, soft-booted foot on a rock and gestured. “Look at their horses,” she said. “Have you ever seen horses like these beyond the Khalkists? These dwarves are Calnar.”

The one called Demoth relaxed his bowstring slightly. “Then what are they doing here?”

“Maybe we should ask,” the female suggested. She looked from one to another of the dwarves with wide-set, slanting eyes. “What are you doing so far from home, high-dwellers?”

Cale found his voice and lowered his arms a bit. “We have no home. We were Calnar once, but no longer. Now we are Hylar, and seeking new delves.”

She looked beyond him, into the distance. “Those drums are yours, then?”

“They are ours. Mistral Thrax has had a vision of Everbardin, and the people of Colin Stonetooth have followed it.” He glanced at Demoth’s bow, took a deep breath and lowered his arms, taking a demanding stance. “And why are elves in this place? And in the name of Reorx, why do you point arrows at us?”

The female elf gestured. “Lower your points,” she said. All around, reluctantly, bows were lowered and draws relaxed. She looked at Cale again. “My name is Eloeth,” she said. “There is more to it than that, but Eloeth is enough. And you?”

“Cale Greeneye,” he said. “Son of Colin Stonetooth, once chieftain of the Calnar, now leader of the Hylar.”

“The Calnar of Thorin,” she said. “I have heard the drums of Balladine.”

“Thoradin,” he corrected. “Thorin is Thorin only for those who remained. We search for Everbardin.”

“Well, have a care searching these mountains,” she suggested. “Look down there.”

Cale turned. He could see nothing where she pointed.

“Come up here where I am,” she said. “Then look.”

Cale clambered up the rise to stand beside the elf girl. She was taller than him by several inches, though she looked to weigh only a fraction of his solid bulk. She pointed again, and Cale turned. From here he could see the valley beyond the trail – the same valley he and the others had turned from, but higher, deeper into the mountains.

The valley floor was littered with death. He shaded his eyes, squinting. The largest of the silent forms looked like horses. Or most of them did. A few looked like dead ogres. And scattered everywhere were other, smaller things. He stared.

“Only the latest of many battles,” the elf told him. “Kal-Thax is under siege and is not a safe place to travel.”

“You’re here,” Cale pointed out.

“We have our own ways,” Eloeth said. “There is dragon war in Silvanesti. Our cousins need us there, and all we can bring with us. To go east we must cross Kal-Thax. So we do.”

He looked around, trying to estimate their number, but it was impossible. The elves had a way of moving a bit and becoming very hard to see, camouflaged against the terrain. But there were a lot of them.

“We are one of many parties,” Eloeth said. “And we are looking for allies.” She looked again at the other dwarves, noticing their armor and their weapons. “I don’t suppose any of you would be interested in fighting dragons?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Not that we couldn’t, if we wanted to, but only humans and kender turn to new ventures before the old ones are complete.” He paused, looking eastward, then added, “There are a lot of humans between here and where you’re going. They might be better mannered if they had something constructive to do. Maybe some of them would join you to fight dragons.”

“Humans?” she raised an exquisite eyebrow.

“I know,” Cale shrugged. “But they aren’t all bad. I know a knight who might help. His name is Glendon Hawke. He’s a great fighter, and he is back there somewhere, in the direction you’re going.”

“Would he join us?”

“I haven’t any idea,” Cale told her. “But you could talk to him. If he won’t help, maybe he knows somebody who will.”

“Thank you,” the elf girl said. “In return for that, I give you a suggestion. If you want to get into Kal-Thax without going through a war zone, turn north. That mountain over there – the highest one – is called Sky’s End. Go around to the north of it. There’s a dwarven place there that has been abandoned. And the rises below it are deserted right now. Since the early snows, the broken lands are virtually impassable … for humans, at least. You could begin your search there for … what is it you call what you seek?”

“Everbardin,” he said. “It means hope. And home.”

“Everbardin,” she repeated. “To us, Qualinesti means hope – or new hope. Silvanesti means home.” She backed away. “Go in peace, Cale Greeneye. You and we are not at war … though everybody else around here seems to be.”

Cale clambered down to the trail again and climbed aboard Piquin, then looked around in surprise. Where there had been dozens, or maybe hundreds, of elves, now he saw only a few – then none. The lithe, silent beings had gone their way, fading into the landscape. His companions also were staring around in confusion.

“Well,” Cale decided, “you heard what she said. Let’s veer north and take a look at that next peak.”

“You trust that elf?” Gran Molden stared at him.

“Why not?” Cale glared back. “I gave her some advice, and she responded. That’s one thing about elves. They are straight traders.” From a high place where they could see the Hylar procession, Cale signaled, using his burnished shield as a mirror. Across the miles, the response came, and they saw Colin Stonetooth’s tribe change course to follow them. Then they headed for the slopes of Sky’s End.

When the dwarven scouts were gone, shadows moved on the hillside, and what had seemed a vacant slope became a large band of western elves trotting down a hidden trail. At the lead, the elf called Demoth asked, “Why would you counsel dwarves, Eloeth? They are nothing to us. Especially here, in Kal-Thax.”

She smiled slightly. “Why not? Those were unusual dwarves, Demoth. They found our trail, when no one else ever has. Besides, I have a hunch about that one … that Cale Greeneye.”

“What hunch?”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling we’ll see him again. Come on. Let’s have a look at these ‘Hylar’ with their marching drums, then see if we can find a knight named Glendon.”

*

In the shadow of a great peak, through broken, tumbled lands bounded by a deep, vertical gorge, the people called Hylar entered the realm of Kal-Thax. Old Mistral Thrax extended his red-palmed hands upward. “There,” he told Colin Stonetooth. “Up there, above the stonefall.”

“Those bead-eyes from the mage?” someone asked. “Do they guide you, Mistral?”

“My hands guide me.” The old dwarf shrugged. “I haven’t seen those bead-eyes since the day that kender left. But this is the place where our search begins.”

Here the entire lower face of the mountain was a massive fan of stone rubble, miles wide at the bottom. Dwarves climbed through it, poking and tasting. “Hewn stone,” they reported. “From fresh delving, very deep.”

Above, high on the mountainside, they found the remains of an elaborate citadel, partly destroyed by rockfall. Within and behind it the Hylar studied walls, passageways, cubicles, and ledges, learning what they could of those who had created this place. They were dwarves, obviously, and the cuttings of the stone spoke of a numerous, energetic people whose tools, primitive by Hylar standards, were nonetheless of fine quality.

And the place was only recently abandoned. So where had they gone?

Wight Anvil’s-Cap, a master delver, studied the rubble below the delvings. Frost Steelbit, who had been chief of wardens in Thorin, studied the patterns of the wrecked citadel. Talam Bendiron, who once had been tap warden, puzzled over the placement of seeps and cisterns. Then they conferred with Colin Stonetooth.

“This place was called Daebardin, and its people the Daewar,” Frost said. “But the runes have been scratched over, indicating that they packed up and left.”

“These Daewar are primitive in some ways,” Talam said. “They do not have the knowledge of water-tunneling, so they have to live near a natural source. But our tampers have sounded out this peak and its only water is outside, on its face.”

“Yet they went inward,” Wight reported. “This delving-stone is from a tunnel that goes south into the mountain. The rubble indicates a straight dig, directly into the stone heart of the peak, with no consistent layers … as there would be if they had widened their digs or delved a living space.”

“They are people of the sun,” Frost Steelbit puzzled. “The architecture of their citadel shows that. They do not like the dark deeps, and they don’t know how to build sun-tunnels, yet they penetrated a peak with no natural quartz for light. Why would they do that?”

“There has been fighting here,” Jerem Longslate noted. “It looks like war between tribes. Some of those who battered the citadel were dark-seekers. Others were of a cliff-dwelling type.”

“But not those who lived here,” Frost persisted. “These are puzzling people. Not as primitive as those around them seem, though as Talam said, there are many things they haven’t discovered. Still, the people who built this place are fairly civilized, it seems.”

“Possibly these are the ones that knight mentioned,” Colin suggested. “The ones he called the bright-colored dwarves. He said they are better organized than most in Kal-Thax.”

“Obviously,” Frost agreed. “They are fine delvers, which means they have fine organization. But they are sun people. Why would they dig into darkness?”

“Possibly to reach a place where they knew there would be light,” Colin mused. “We know where their tunnel begins. I think we should find where it ends.”

“It will take a while to break through the seal they set in their tunnel,” Wight Anvil’s-Cap said. “It is only stone, but cleverly done – a hinged plug, of all things! Balam Platen wants to study how it was made. He believes that such a gate, using the proper metals to shield the stone, would be impregnable.”

“Let him study to his content.” The chieftain nodded in agreement. “There will be time to explore the tunnel. Right now, there are other things to do. We must establish residence in this land, of course. After that, I think we should take a look at these mountains and maybe meet some of our new neighbors.”

Since this place was obviously dwarven, and obviously abandoned, Colin Stonetooth claimed it and the adjoining slopes for the Hylar, thus establishing his tribe as a legitimate resident nation in the realm of Kal-Thax and laying a foundation for diplomatic negotiations – once they found someone to negotiate with. In a solemn ceremony, he proclaimed all of the north side of Sky’s End and the valley below as far as the great gorge as Hylar ground. As was dwarven custom, the Hylar claimed the site of their stronghold, enough land around that to support the stronghold, and enough beyond that to establish a wide perimeter for privacy and defense.

Armed companies were sent out to mark the boundaries with runes and cairns. Thus did what had been Daebardin become the first Hybardin.

Most of the tribe – now a thane, as the runes they found said land-holding tribes were called – went to work on the old citadel and the hewn caves behind it to create temporary quarters. Cale Greeneye and his scouts explored the nearby countryside and had a look beyond the peak where armies of dwarves – unaware as yet of the Hylar – patrolled the frontal ranges facing east. Colin Stonetooth and the elders laid their plans, and Willen Ironmaul readied the Hylar Guard for an expedition to neighboring slopes.

And while all this was under way, Tera Sharn involved herself in the repair and general tidying up of her people’s new home.

Working with other women and the older children, she was carrying bales into the delves for counting when she stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. For an instant, she thought she had seen someone – a strange, ancient, glowing dwarf, watching her. Like the person of Mistral Thrax’s dream. It was only for an instant, though, and then the vision was gone.

Then she knew something that she had not known before. Dropping the packs, she spread her hands on her small midriff and a slight smile creased her cheeks.

When the work was done, she went looking for Willen Ironmaul. “We have a secret, my love,” she told him. “The first child to be born in this new place – the first child of the Hylar realm – will be your child and mine.”

It was the following morning when the chieftain of the Hylar set out to meet his new neighbors. Flanked by the Ten and followed by an army of hundreds of Hylar who wore armor fashioned for the skills learned from a human knight, Colin Stonetooth crossed the shoulder of Sky’s End and headed for the Windweaver crags.

Chapter 22

THE NEW NEIGHBORS

Except for the deserted slope north of Sky’s End, which was virtually impassable for humans, the only ready access into the Kharolis Mountains from the east was along a narrowing foothill range extending from Grand Gorge to the Cliffs of Shalomar. North of that, for hundreds of miles, the gorge and its precipitous canyons guarded the mountain range. To the south, the cliffs did the same. And in both directions, encroaching winter was narrowing the approaches day by day.

All of the assaults by outsiders driven by the eastern wars, therefore, had been along a sixty-mile front between the gorge and the cliffs, where several valleys ran deep into the mountains, with pathways beyond.

As the strongest force among the tribes linked by the Pact of the Kal-Thax thanes, the Daewar held the central range, with Theiwar on their north flank and Daergar – defending their mines from other dwarves as much as defending Kal-Thax from intrusion – on the south. Here and there among them, usually wandering the lower slopes, were bands of wild Klar, and there were even some Aghar here and there, driven upward from lower regions. No one had any idea where the Aghar were from day to day, because of the tendency of the gully dwarves to pack up and move every time anyone noticed them.

On this day, things were quiet along the front. Fresh snows lay on the peaks and in the high valleys, and biting winds carried laden clouds eastward. Although the distant plains seethed with humans and who knew what else, there had been no concerted attempts to invade – and thus no real battles – for more than a week. There was some skirmishing, but most of it now was between Theiwar and Daewar troops, or between Theiwar and Daergar, or Daergar and Daewar. Also, a group of Klar, crazed by mercury vapors after a “spirit floating” ceremony in some deep, hidden hole, had tried to attack a Daewar patrol and been wiped out, which had led to harsh words between some Daewar commanders and the Daergar miners who provided the hated tamex – the false metal – to the Klar.

On top of everything else, nearly a dozen dwarves in the reserve lines – dwarves of various tribes – had been found mysteriously murdered in recent days, killed silently, and robbed of some of their garb or armor. Some of the missing items included a Theiwar sloped helmet with face mesh, several kinds of cloaks, shrouds, and kilts, a Daergar iron mask, a Daewar winter mantel. It was as though some assassin were methodically prowling the darkness, collecting a variety of clothing.

Olim Goldbuckle was at a loss as to what was going on, and his counterpart chiefs – Slide Tolec of the Theiwar and Vog Ironface of the Daergar – seemed as puzzled as he was.

It was a minor thing, but troubling.

On this morning, though, there were other things to think about. Daewar scouts came pounding in from the rear lines and pointed toward the high crags where spotters were stationed. Bright signals were coming from up there, and Olim read the flashes carefully, then turned to peer northwestward, shading his eyes. “By Reorx’s hammer!” he spat. “They’ve gotten behind us!”

There in the distance, on the high slopes beyond the Theiwar camps, an army snaked its way down the flank of a rise – hundreds of armored figures astride tall mounts, and many hundreds more afoot, carrying javelins and pennants, all moving steadily toward the widespread defense lines.

“Signal Slide Tolec!” Olim Goldbuckle commanded. “Those people are almost on top of him. Tell him to defend!”

Burnished mirrors flashed in the wintry sun, and even in the distance they could see the Theiwar camps coming alive to face the new danger.

“Who are they?” Olim growled, trying to see details across the miles. “Are those horses? What kind of horses could traverse these mountains in winter?”

Gem Bluesleeve was beside him, squinting younger eyes. “See their armor, Sire! It is like the armor of those knights we met on the plains. And their horses are armored, too.”

“Knights?” Olim squinted harder. “Up here? How did they get here? And how did they get above us? Horses are useless in this season. They can’t negotiate mountain passes in winter!”

“Those seem to,” Gem pointed out.

“Well, whoever they are, the Theiwar see them now. They will deal with them.”

In the distance, bands of dark figures ran from the Theiwar camps toward the path of the intruders and disappeared over a glistening rise. Olim assumed an ambush was being laid. The Theiwar were very good at ambush. The strangers, whoever they were, were about to learn just how good. Olim smiled grimly as the army on the mountainside marched around a curve and out of sight – directly into a prepared Theiwar defense.

For a time, there was nothing to see. Whatever was happening on the north flank miles away, was hidden from the Daewar camps. Minutes dragged by as Olim Goldbuckle stared into the distance, imagining what Slide Tolec’s troops must be doing to the intruders.

Then, distant but strong on the wind, came a sound, and Olim paled beneath his whiskers. Errant winds gusted, driving curtains of snow across the slanted lands, but on the wind came the sound of marching drums.

The blowing snow drifted past, and figures seemed to rise out of it. Hundreds of armed, armored figures, some mounted high on tall, golden horses. They were well past the Theiwar camps and were closing fast on the Daewar line.

*

Colin Stonetooth paused for a moment as the Hylar cleared the twisting, snow-packed path and emerged into a low, rough canyon between caprock-topped cliffs. Beside him, Jerem Longslate nodded. “Those were ambush signals, all right,” he said. “And there is the ambush, just ahead. There … and there, up in the rocks. They are hiding from us, waiting for us to come to them. Definitely an ambush.”

“Hardly a greeting committee,” the chieftain agreed. He turned and beckoned. When Willen Ironmaul rode up beside him, he pointed ahead. “Those people Cale saw from the promontory. Some of them are in this canyon now, waiting to ambush us. Do you see them?”

“Aye, Sire.” The big guardsman nodded. “I see where they are.”

“I want to talk to them,” Colin Stonetooth said. “Have someone round them up and bring them along. We will go on to where those large groups are assembled, down on the pass.”

“Yes, Sire.” Willen wheeled his giant horse and pranced back to give his orders to the guard companies. “We have found some of our neighbors,” he said. “First section, take a foot company and gather up that ambush. Sections two and three, go have a look at those camps beyond. Gather up whoever’s there and rejoin us over where all those brightly clothed people are.” He circled his arm above his head. “Companies forward!”

“Sometimes your son-in-law sounds just like that human knight,” Jerem Longslate said to Colin.

“Sometimes you do, too,” Colin reminded the First of the Ten.

Jerem shrugged. “Well, the knight was the one who taught us.”

*

Beneath a slanting sun, the canyon lay in silence, only the mountain winds whispering through it. Then there were the echoes of steel-shod hooves on stone, the creak and clink of armor, the sounds of booted feet marching.

“They’re coming,” a Theiwar whispered in the shadowed clefts below the caprock. “Ready?”

“Ready,” other quiet voices responded.

Dark in the shadows they waited, and the intruders appeared at a bend, coming toward them. Slide Tolec frowned, easing forward for a better look. They were dwarves! But what kind of dwarves? And riding horses! They looked like no one he had ever seen – sturdy, dark-maned people with horned or plumed helms, edged shields at every shoulder, and wide, tapered blades at hand. They fairly bristled with weaponry.

Most of the strangers had trimmed beards that seemed swept back, as though they faced a wind. Again, Slide gaped at the tall golden-and-white horses and shook his head in wonder. He had seen horses, but he had never seen dwarves ride them. And such horses! They were half again the size of any horses he had ever seen.

Behind the company of mounted dwarves came footmen, a hundred or more of them, marching in perfect precision as though someone were calling the step. They moved as though a drummer were pacing them.

Slide had never seen such people. Dwarves or not, though, they were intruders. This was no new thane sprung from the Einar masses. These people were from somewhere other than Kal-Thax!

The column came directly below the ambush, and Slide Tolec raised his arm and sliced downward. From both sides of the canyon, a hail of stones and missiles crashed down on the strangers below. Thrown stones, sling-stones, bolts from throwing sticks, and several axes descended upon the intruders like raining death … descended, ricocheted aside, and rattled on the stone floor of the canyon.

Slide stared down into the chasm. At the instant of attack, even as the stones had rained down, the mounted dwarves had wheeled, separated, and pounded ahead, their tall horses hardly breaking stride as they angled up the snowy slopes. Directly below the ambushers, the canyon floor was a solid carpet of metal shields, covering every part of every intruder. And even as Slide gawked, the shields parted in neat rows, each shield tilting, and a barrage of iron balls whistled upward, driven by deadly, humming slings. Singing like angry hornets, the hail of balls smashed into the shallow caverns, throwing shards of broken stone, caroming this way and that among the Theiwar. There were shrieks and howls, and several dwarves plunged from hiding to roll down the crusted slopes where sturdy shields stopped them and strong hands disarmed them.

Slide Tolec stared in amazement. Once before, he had seen an ambush turned. But never like this! The strange dwarves moved and struck in perfect unison, wasting no effort. It was as though they were fierce, deadly dolls all dancing on a single string. The carpet of shields tilted again, turned to the sides, and a forest of iron-tipped javelins bristled there, held in strong hands on cocked, powerful arms.

Slide saw movement above and glanced upward. The caprock above the far canyon wall was lined with burly figures astride tall horses, all looking directly across at his hiding place. He started to retreat farther into the depths, but from directly overhead a lance point was thrust downward, pinning his sleeve to the stone beneath his arm.

A deep voice called, “You in the holes! Come out, and be quick about it!”

*

Pushing a thousand or more fleeing Theiwar ahead of them, scattering bands of Daergar and Klar as the wind scattered the drifting snow and gathering them, too, into their herd, wedges of Hylar warriors led by mounted elite guards moved in on the main camp of Olim Goldbuckle’s Daewar army and surrounded it. At a dozen points, Kal-Thax dwarves tried to charge the strangers, to break their lines, but they were repelled expertly and easily each time. There were few casualties in the attempts. Most were simply pushed back, pushed inward until the main camp – a quarter mile square at the head of a promontory looking out at the distant plains – was filled almost solidly with panicked dwarves, staring around in confusion.

Gem Bluesleeve attempted to rally a counterattack by the Daewar, a running wedge of shield-bearers thrown directly at the line of strangers. But the lead shields met lance-tips wielded by mounted dwarves, and the attack collapsed upon itself. Footmen flanking the riders charged forward and drove the Golden Hammer’s best warriors back into the crowded campsite. A hundred yards away, a howling charge by masked Daergar did no better.

Olim Goldbuckle knew a hopeless situation when he saw one. The Daewar leader climbed up on a rock, spread his hands, and bellowed, “Hold!” Then he dropped his shield to the ground, loosed his sword and dropped it, and stood empty-handed and defiant, his fists on his hips. “We are taken!” he shouted, looking this way and that at the solid line of strange dwarves facing him fifty yards away. “We yield! Who are you people, and what do you want?”

Directly ahead of him the line parted and a plume-helmed rider pushed through, accompanied by ten others flanking him in tight formation. The leader reined in his tall horse, sat in silence for a moment facing Olim Goldbuckle, then slung his great hammer and raised his visor. The face revealed there was as weathered and tough as mountain stone, framed by dark, clipped hair and a trimmed, back-swept beard with touches of silver in it. “Name yourself!” he demanded.

Olim squared his shoulders in defiance. “I am Olim Goldbuckle, Prince of Thane Daewar of Kal-Thax!”

Eyes like ice studied him. “Are you the leader of all these warriors?”

Some distance away the crowd rippled as a masked warrior in dark furs pushed through. Without removing the slitted iron mask below his conical helm, he faced the stranger. “I am Vog Ironface!” his hollow-sounding voice called. “I am Chieftain of Thane Daergar of Kal-Thax!”

And on the other side, a wide-shouldered dwarf in bronze-studded leathers stepped up onto a cask and pulled aside his mesh visor, squinting in the sun. “I am Slide Tolec!” he spat. “I am Chieftain of Thane Theiwar of Kal-Thax!”

Near the east perimeter a wild-haired figure in uncut furs and wrapped boots pushed past others of his kind to face the line of shields. “Bole Trune!” he shouted, snarling in rage. “I am Klar! I lead Klar of Kal-Thax!”

Somewhere in the crowd, a small, quavering voice was raised. “Where Highbulp?”

“Dunno,” another answered. “What want Highbulp for?”

“He s’posed say who he is,” the first voice explained.

“Let Highbulp sleep,” another suggested. “He don’ know who he is half th’ time, anyway.” Then that voice rose higher, “Aghar! This place, whatever! Highbulp’s name Faze I or somethin’!”

The armored, mounted dwarf with the plumed helm and swept-back whiskers looked around, surveying the thousands of encircled beings before him. “You are many tribes,” he said. “Do you war upon one another here, or just upon strangers?”

Olim Goldbuckle gritted his teeth, scowling at the armed one. There was a quality about the strangers – and particularly about this one – that annoyed him, but at the same time puzzled him. They seemed more aloof than hostile, more curious than combative, but he had seen them effortlessly throw back every attack made against them. “We war upon whom we please!” the Daewar roared. “Now you know who we are! Who are you?”

“I am Colin Stonetooth,” the stranger said evenly. “We are the Hylar. We are new-come to this realm, but we have come to stay. We claim equal rights and will defend them if we must.”

“Intruders!” Vog Ironface shouted, his voice echoing through his slitted mask. “You are not of Kal-Thax!”

“We are of Kal-Thax now,” Colin Stonetooth said, his voice deep and level. “We have made due claim, and the territory we hold is ours.”

“You are not part of the pact!” Slide Tolec called, his broad shoulders hunched as he pushed closer to the line of shields. “Kal-Thax belongs to those who defend it!”

Colin Stonetooth inclined his head, looking down at the angry Theiwar. “And what is this pact?” he asked.

“A treaty! A covenant of thanes, to defend Kal-Thax against intruders.”

“Against what intruders?” the Hylar prodded.

“All intruders!” Vog Ironface snapped. “You and all the others!”

“We are not intruders,” the Hylar said, slowly. “We came here, yes. But now we are here, just as you are. What intruders?”

Olim Goldbuckle shook his head, not liking the logic of the newcomer but understanding it. The strangers were indeed dwarves, and if they had laid proper claim to territories here – which he somehow was sure they had – then they were part of Kal-Thax, like it or not. Finally, in the silence, he raised his arm and pointed toward the far plains. “Those intruders,” he said. “Especially the humans! They are out there and they threaten Kal-Thax. We are allied in its defense.”

“Then we, the Hylar, will join in your pact.” Colin Stonetooth nodded. “For those humans out there, we have no more love than you do.”

“You will help to defend Kal-Thax?”

“Of course we will,” the Hylar assured them. “I wonder, though … exactly what is it that we must defend?”

“Kal-Thax!” Olim Goldbuckle tipped his head, staring at the Hylar. “These mountains are Kal-Thax.”

“And you allow none to pass through?”

“Pass through? Those are mostly humans out there, Hylar. Humans do not ‘pass through.’ Humans invade! They encroach! Wherever humans get a foothold, eventually there will be none there but humans.” Olim Goldbuckle spread his hands. “Our people learned that, long ago. If humans get into Kal-Thax, they will stay.”

Colin Stonetooth gazed around at the highland vistas. “Humans cannot live in mountains like these,” he said. “We have dealt with humans, too, and we know them. They are not trustworthy, on the whole, but these mountains need no defense against them. Humans would starve here.”

“There are valleys in Kal-Thax,” Olim said, stubbornly. “They would settle in the valleys and build colonies. They would multiply and expand. In the end, they would try to wipe out the dwarves. That’s how humans are. They must be kept out of Kal-Thax!”

“There are many kinds of defense,” Colin Stonetooth replied. “I have seen great tides of wanderers out there, on those plains. Even the strongest dam will break if there is not a controlled release … a way for the flow to pass beyond. Has that been considered?”

“It has been considered enough!” Vog Ironface shouted. “Are you … you Hylar with us or not?”

“We are here to stay, if that’s what you mean. No humans or anyone else will drive us out. We seek Everbardin here, in Kal-Thax.” Colin Stonetooth leaned forward in his saddle, gazing from one to another of them. “Do any of you question that we can defend what we choose to defend?”

There was no answer to that. Of all the dwarven troops standing cordon along the eastern flank of Kal-Thax, nearly a third were here, ringed and helpless, held hostage by a few hundred strangers with strange skills.

“Then so be it.” Colin Stonetooth nodded. “We do not want war with people of our own kind. You, Olim Goldbuckle! I ask your pledge of peace and a council of Thanes. Do you agree?”

Olim shrugged. “I agree,” he said.

The Hylar turned. “You, Slide Tolec! Do you also agree?”

The Theiwar squinted at him, hating him but helpless to contest his will. Then he spread his hands. “I agree,” he said.

Colin turned to Vog Ironface. “And you? Will you show me your face and agree to what I ask?”

“I will agree,” the hollow voice rumbled. “But I will not blind myself for your pleasure.”

“A dark-seeker,” Colin muttered curiously. Then he nodded and turned toward the wildly clad Klar. “And you, Bole Trune of Thane Klar?”

The Klar seemed taken aback at the idea that anyone would ask for his promise. But he shrugged. “I agree,” he said. Turning, he scowled fiercely about at others of his kind. “My word is given! I kill any Klar who breaks it!”

From somewhere, deep in the crowd, a wavering voice offered, “Highbulp prob’ly ag … agr … go’long with that, too, when he wake up. That okay?”

With a gesture, Colin Stonetooth backed his mount away, and the line of shields withdrew, companies of Hylar moving in perfect unison to a tattoo of drums.

Olim Goldbuckle frowned. Drums! So these were the ones! He snapped his fingers, and a Daewar picked up his sword and shield and handed them to him. “You called for a Council of Thanes!” he called to the Hylar leader. “When and where?”

“When the passes are blocked by winter,” Colin called back. “But first” — he turned, scanning the foothills below the line of defense — “I believe we could give those people out there something to think about until spring.”

Without waiting for a response, the Hylar leader wheeled his horse and headed eastward at a trot, his ten bodyguards flanking him purposefully. Behind him, companies of mounted Hylar spread and followed in a widening spearhead formation. Hylar footmen formed precise companies and followed, trotting along behind and among the mounted units. Within moments the Hylar army had become a deadly wedge of armed dwarves, banners aloft and drums singing, heading for the camps of the humans on the ridges below.

Olim Goldbuckle looked after them, then slung his shield and raised his sword. “Well, you heard him!” he roared. “Let’s go chase some humans!”

Within moments the hundreds of Hylar in the lead were followed by thousands of Daewar, Daergar, and Theiwar, with bands of Klar running and howling along their flanks. By the time this wall of dwarves reached the lesser slopes, entire camps of human intruders were scurrying about in panic, turning to flee to the plains beyond.

In the highlands camp, only a few dwarves remained – a tumble of gully dwarves heading for cover, a few stragglers from other tribes, and a cluster of a hundred or so armed figures watching the assault from above.

These were a mix of kinds – mostly Theiwar, but with some Daergar among them. They clustered around an individual who might have been anything. Silently he had mingled with the others of all the camps, unnoticed except by those who chose to follow him. Though his face was obscured by Theiwar mesh, the clothing and armor he wore were an odd collection of Daewar, Daergar, Theiwar, and even Klar garb. He could have passed through any of their camps unnoticed, and had.

Now he stared after the receding Hylar force, and his eyes burned with hatred. “I do not agree,” he muttered. “Glome the Assassin will not be herded like those sheep, by a band of strangers.”

Glome had plans of his own, and no one, not even these strange Hylar, were going to stand in his way.

Chapter 23

A CALL TO COVENANT

Methodically, relentlessly, the combined dwarven armies of eastern Kal-Thax – led by a few hundred Hylar – swept the passes and valleys below the highland range, driving vast numbers of humans and other races ahead of them. Within days, the entire border from Grand Gorge to the Cliffs of Shalomar was secured and free of most intruders.

There were clashes of arms during those days, but they were few and brief. A band of roaming goblins, taking advantage of the human disarray to raid a camp of nomadic Sackmen, found itself instead faced with the blades and shields of the Golden Hammer, Gem Bluesleeve’s Daewar strike force. Trapped between their human victims and the marching dwarves, the goblins tried to fight free. Very few survived to flee alongside the very people they had first attacked. A fighting unit of wild Sandrunners from the northern plains stood off two companies of combined Daergar and Theiwar for a day, then was massacred by Daergar in the dark of night.

And at the very edge of the foothill range, miles from the rising mountains to the west, a company of Ergothian knights and footmen – accompanied by various other natives of the land of Ergoth, trying to turn the flood of outlanders being forced back into their lands – confronted Willen Ironmaul’s elite guard at the crest of a low ridge. Twice, the human forces hit the line of mounted dwarves, and twice they were thrown back – as much by the ferocity of the Calnar horses as by the stubborn determination of the dwarves who rode them. Then, as they regrouped, Willen himself rode out from his lines and raised a hand in salute toward a familiar figure. The knight who rode forward to meet him wore a blue cloak over his mail, and a blue plume on his helm. The red falcon in stoop upon his breast was the same as it had been when last they met, and the sword he carried was an exquisite, dwarf-crafted blade with a diamond in its pommel.

“Ho, Sir Knight!” the dwarf called as Glendon Hawke approached. “Must we now test ourselves against our teacher?”

“Ho, Sir Dwarf!” Glendon retorted. “Have you found your Everbardin in those mountains?”

“We have found the place to begin our quest.” Willen nodded. “And people of our race – or fairly close – to share it if they will.”

Three knights bearing the insignia of an Ergothian lord had ridden forward, stepping their mounts past Glendon’s, edging the free lance knight aside. “And now you return here, driving outlanders before you?” one said. “These Cobar and Sackmen do not belong here, Sir Dwarf. Why do you bring them to us?”

“They do not belong in Kal-Thax, either,” Willen pointed out. “And if they tried to stay in those mountains through the winter – even if we would allow it – they would starve or freeze before spring. Is that what you humans want?”

“Of course not!” the same knight snapped. “But we can’t have them overrunning our lands. And if we push them north, toward Xak Tsaroth, the overlords there will put them to death, or send them off to Istar to be sold as slaves. We want no part of such business.”

“Then why not do something about the reason they come here?”

“What reason?” Glendon straightened in his saddle, resting his lance, ignoring the glares of the pennanted knights at his interruption.

“The dragon wars in the east,” Willen said. “Cale Greeneye has met elves who believe the dragons can be defeated, if the elves can rally enough support.”

“Yes, I know about the elves. They came looking for me. They said I was recommended by dwarves. They also have spoken to the lords of eastern Ergoth.”

“And will you help them?”

“Some have already gone,” an Ergothian knight said haughtily, “and others are considering it.”

“And you, Sir Glendon?”

“It is difficult to say no to an elf named Eloeth. But I was needed here first. A village has employed me as its … well, its champion.” He glanced aside at the knights, two of whom were frowning at him. “Well, people can’t wait forever for the leaders of Ergoth to come to agreement with those bullies in Xak Tsaroth!”

Willen wondered what that was all about, but no explanations seemed forthcoming. He shifted, to point behind him, where laden clouds flowed among the Kharolis peaks. “Winter is at hand up there, human. And we are up there. There is nothing more you and your countrymen can do here … unless it is to assure the slaughter of people of your own kind.”

“Cobar and Sackmen?” a knight sneered. “Sandrunners and Morion bandits? They are not of our kind!”

“They are human,” Willen Ironmaul pointed out. “You can deal with them or drive them away, but not to the west. Not now.”

One of the three pennanted knights – a burly, gray-bearded man in battle-scarred armor – had said nothing, only listened curiously. But now he raised a gloved hand. “The dwarf is right,” he said. “Within a week, the passes up there will be closed. These migrants would stand no chance. It may be that the time is at hand for duty to bend the knee to honor on this front.” He turned to gaze at Willen Ironmaul, and the big dwarf felt the impact of cold, gray eyes as direct and forceful as those of Colin Stonetooth himself. “You may retire from the field, Sir Dwarf. You have accomplished what you came to do. For now.”

Without waiting for a reply, the gray knight wheeled his mount and rode away, his two companions following him obediently. Willen stared after him, then asked, “Who was that?”

“That,” Glendon said, “was Lord Charon, and I imagine you are the first dwarf he has ever honored with a word.” The falcon knight raised his hand in salute and backed his sturdy horse away. “Farewell, Sir Dwarf. But heed carefully what you have heard. Lord Charon said, ‘For now.’ You will have no further intrusions while the snows last. But with spring … well, as I said, these people aren’t our people, and when they can go, they will go where they will.”

*

When snows filled the passes below the Windweavers, Colin Stonetooth led his warriors back to the promontory of the camps. Cale Greeneye and a group from Hybardin awaited him there with news.

For some time Colin Stonetooth conferred with Mistral Thrax, beside a fire where the old dwarf sat swathed in furs. Then the chieftain called the rest to him for their reports.

The sealed tunnel behind the old Daewar stronghold on Sky’s End had been opened, and Wight Anvil’s-Cap had led explorers into it. The tunnel was a marvel of delving, they reported – nearly fifty miles in length and blocked at intervals by heavy grills made of iron railing, which the metalworkers in the party had removed. At the tunnel’s end was a system of natural caverns deep beneath the surface. There, keeping themselves hidden, Hylar scouts had seen dwarves – Daewar, by the runes on the walls – doing things with what appeared to be giant worms. Beyond were other guarded tunnels.

The explorers had turned back to await the chieftain’s orders, but Wight Anvil’s-Cap was convinced by what he saw there that the huge cavern they had seen was just the first of many. He was excited by the possibilities. The cavern was miles in dimensions, and sky-lighted by quartz strata – not as well lighted as Thorin with its sun-tunnels, but light, nonetheless. There was fresh air, ventilation, and – in the judgment of Talam Bendiron, who knew of such things – there seemed plentiful water somewhere near.

“Light at the end of the tunnel,” Colin mused. “I was right, then. The sun-people tunneled through darkness because they knew there would be light.”

And there was more to the report. Cale Greeneye and his roving scouts had followed a group of Daewar returning from the slopes, and had seen them enter a hidden gate at the foot of a cliff on Cloudseeker Mountain, beneath the Windweaver crags. The gate was due south of the opening on Sky’s End, and Wight Anvil’s-Cap calculated that it was a second passage, leading downward to the same tunnel he had explored. In the same vicinity, only a few miles away, were the high, shallow caves where many of the Theiwar seemed to be concentrated.

“It appears that the sun-lovers tunneled beneath their neighbors,” Cale noted, “as though they knew what they would find there.”

Colin Stonetooth made a mental note to never underestimate the Daewar or their prince, Olim Goldbuckle. Stepping away from the fire, where Wight Anvil’s-Cap was helping Mistral Thrax brew a mix of herbal tea and hot ale, he beckoned to his youngest son and pointed eastward. On the slopes below, large groups of dwarves were trudging upward toward them – several distinct groups, shunning each other but all coming the same way.

“Our allies are returning,” Colin said. “Soon it will be time for the council they promised. I think we should council in the caverns that Wight has spied below. It will be a delicate matter, though. Our Daewar friends might resent intrusion.”

“Not to mention the Theiwar resenting the Daewar’s intrusion under their mountain.” Cale grinned. “And those people of the iron faces – the Daergar – they seem to resent everybody, just on general principle.”

“Complex relationships make for complex negotiations.” Colin shrugged. “I will send Willen and his elites north with these people, to approach from there through the long tunnel. The foot companies will accompany me to that hidden gate, and I shall call for the thanes’ council there. Reorx grant me the wisdom, maybe I can get all of these various people to talk before they begin to fight.”

“Reorx grant you a lot of wisdom to do that,” Cale said, seriously. Then, “What do you want of me, Father?”

“Take your scouts, and any other volunteers you can get from Willen’s troops. Set lookouts on the peaks. With the borders of Kal-Thax closed now, when the drums call, these tribes and many others – those Einar you have seen – will come. Some may be combative at first, and I want no surprises. Once we are gathered – and at peace – I would like a thorough exploration of this region. I leave that to you.”

“That is duty of my choice.” Cale nodded, then raised an eyebrow. “Father, since leaving Thoradin, have you ever wished to return?”

Colin frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I never have,” his son said. “I think I was always restless there, as though I were trapped by the city itself. Now I find – and some of the others do, too – that I have no real liking for caverns and tunnels, for stone ceilings and walls. I wonder if I – if a lot of us – are really true dwarves. Some of us prefer the axe to the hammer, and prefer the sun to the stone.”

Colin rubbed his beard thoughtfully then said, “No dwarf may tell another what he will be, Cale. For my part, the proper way to live is in good delvings, beneath the standing peaks. But not all are so inclined. You are a true dwarf, Cale, but some prefer the sun to the stone. In Thorin … Thoradin … in your grandsire’s time, when they were still constructing the sun-tunnels, some people preferred to set the outer sleeves rather than the inner. There was a name for them, which was said with great respect. They were called the Neidar.”

“Neidar?” Cale gazed at his father. “Knoll-dwellers?”

“The outside crews built cabins for themselves,” Colin explained. “Usually on knolls on the mountainside, where the winds would sweep away the winter snows. Over time, many of them developed a fondness for the open sky. When the work was done, some of them would have remained outside by choice had it not been for the ogre wars. Many of our people still prefer the axe to the hammer … just as you and your companions do.”

“Neidar,” Cale mused. “Maybe I am Neidar, then. I like the mountain’s sides better than I like its belly.” He nodded, started away, then turned back. “Father, those caverns beneath Cloudseeker … they mean more to you than just caverns, don’t they?”

“They may,” Colin said quietly. “Mistral Thrax has told me … from whatever strange wisdom he holds in his hands … that there lies Everbardin.”

*

Group by cautious group, the massed tribes of Kal-Thax withdrew from the now silent foothills, marching up the funnel passes toward the Windweaver crags. Led by the newcomers, those who called themselves Hylar, they had driven away the outsiders encroaching into their mountains and in all likelihood had the mountains to themselves now, until spring. It was time to go home and get on with their various schemes and plans.

Keeping distance between themselves and the other tribes, the Daewar angled northward above the promontory, the Theiwar headed west toward the crest of Cloudseeker, and the sullen Daergar turned south toward their mines. The wild, undisciplined Klar were here and there, going their own directions.

But they were all still within sight of one another when a sound grew on the mountain winds – a strong, strange, compelling music that was more than just the rhythms of marching drums. It was a signal, and a song. The dwarves of Kal-Thax had never before heard the eerie, beautiful drum-song of the Call to Balladine. But they heard it now, and there was no doubt what it meant. Colin Stonetooth had done what he promised. He had driven the human invaders away from Kal-Thax for the winter. And now he called his new neighbors to do as they had promised. The drum-song was a call, and a summons. It was time for the Council of Thanes.

Vog Ironface and his Daergar warriors heard the call and turned masked faces toward it, locating the source. From the heights of Cloudseeker it came, from the icy region of the Windweaver crags. Theiwar territory. Were the strangers aligned now with Theiwar? If so, then they were aligned against the Daergar.

“Come on,” Vog Ironface rumbled, his voice hollow and sullen behind his slitted mask. “If we are betrayed, let’s learn of it now.”

Slide Tolec heard the sound, directly ahead, seeming to come from his own caves, and a cold dread touched him. The Hylar! The strangers, new-come to Kal-Thax, who had demonstrated their military might and then had withdrawn, to lead a sweep to clear outsiders from the slopes of the realm. Had it all been a ruse? With everyone preoccupied, had they come back here and invaded Theibardin? Were the Hylar now in control of Theiwar lairs?

He remembered Crouch Redfire, who had first organized the Theiwar into a power in Kal-Thax, and Twist Cutshank, who had listened to false counsel and almost destroyed them. It was like something those two might have done, to carry out such a betrayal.

“Theiwar!” Slide Tolec shouted. “Forward! Prepare to attack!”

And just north of the Theiwar, Prince Olim Goldbuckle and his Daewar army heard the call and checked their weapons. The sound of drums was coming from below Galefang, where the Daewar’s secret entrance to the subterranean world below Cloudseeker lay. The Hylar had found the way to Urkhan’s caverns! They would invade New Daebardin! Olim drew his sword and sliced it forward in the cold mountain air. “Daewar to me!” he roared. “Flanks left and right! Double-time!”

“The Theiwar!” Gem Bluesleeve called, pointing to the left where Theiwar were pouring over a ridge, angling upward toward Galefang. “And there! The Daergar are coming!”

“Shields and blades!” Olim ordered. “Get ready to fight!”

On rises and ridges all around, bands of fur-clothed Klar heard the drum-call and saw the armies of Daewar, Theiwar, and Daergar heading for the source of it. “Rust and rot!” Bole Trune growled. “I give my word, I let no one break it. Klar! Fight!”

A mile or so away, huddled under an outthrust shelf of stone, small faces turned toward the sound of the drums and one of them asked, “What that noise?”

“Drum,” another said. “Like before.”

“What before?”

“Before! When we get all surrounded an’ say okay we do council.”

“When all that happen?”

“While back, Highbulp. You were havin’ nap, maybe didn’ notice.”

“Well, what it mean?”

“Prob’ly mean we s’posed to go where noise is.”

“Why?”

“’Cause we said okay we would.”

“Oh.”

There were other ears, too, that heard the song of the drums. For miles around, in caverns and valley shelters, in fields, mining camps, and snowy pastures, the Einar by the thousands turned to listen and wonder. Unaffiliated with any tribe, though they shared ancestors with all of them, the common folk of Kal-Thax heard the call and came out from tiny villages, cave complexes, and remote shelters to follow the strange, hypnotic sound – the commanding, lovely Call to Balladine.

Some of the Klar arrived first at the cliffs below Galefang. They howled down the slopes, in Klar fashion, then stopped in confusion as they saw the solid wall of iron shields facing them there.

The Daewar came then, pushing up through a snowy draw, bright garments brilliant against the white of new winter. In the thousands, they far outnumbered the Hylar foot companies and the eleven mounted Hylar waiting under the cliffs, but Olim Goldbuckle remembered the encirclement of the border camps and the precise, efficient way in which these outland strangers had made themselves part of Kal-Thax. They hesitated, and when the Hylar line made no move, they pulled back to wait.

The Theiwar came cautiously, ready to counterattack invaders in their country, but when they saw the assembly below the cliffs they were confused. Nobody was attacking anybody. Gathering to one side of the massed Daewar, they clustered around and behind Slide Tolec, their hands on their dark blades, and waited.

By the time the Daergar of Vog Ironface arrived on the scene, others were arriving, too – small groups of puzzled, cautious Einar from the nearer slopes, and even a little tribe – or tumble – of Aghar, creeping along a gully to peer out at what was happening beyond.

By dusk, thousands and tens of thousands of dwarves waited on the slope of Cloudseeker, below the towering crag called Galefang, nearest of the Windweavers. It was what Colin Stonetooth had counted on. There was such a crowd now, that no one – not even the well-armed Daewar – could start trouble without risking a free-for-all in which everyone would be outnumbered.

The sheer numbers, and the complexity of the groups, made it simply impractical for anyone to attack anyone. And to most dwarves – even the unpredictable Klar – the primary test of any situation – the primary test of anything – was its practicality.

Mounted on his great horse Schoen, and flanked by the Ten, Colin Stonetooth rode to the top of a shoulder in full view of everyone on the slope. With great ceremony, he removed his helm and shield and handed them across to Jerem Longslate, First of the Ten. Then he drew his sword and hammer and – as he had seen Olim Goldbuckle do to signal a talk – he dropped them on the ground.

The drums ceased their song, and in the silence Colin Stonetooth said, in a voice that carried to the fringes of the great crowd, “We are the Hylar. We are newly-come, but we are of Kal-Thax now, just as are all of you. So know this: in the spring, or the next spring, these mountains may be overrun by humans. Unless we – all of us, in unison – take measures to prevent it, we will all fall before the tide of human migration, if not this year, then the year after.”

Olim Goldbuckle stepped to the head of his legions and raised his arms. “You speak of measures, Hylar!” he called. “What measures?”

“We will show you,” Colin said. “Among us, we have the means to create a stronghold which no human horde can penetrate.” He pointed. “You, Vog Ironface! Your people have the raw materials that will be needed, in your mines. The ores to make the metals for a mighty stronghold. And you, Slide Tolec! Your people know these passes better than any. And you, Bole Trune of the Klar. Organized, your people can save themselves from the humans by helping to save all the rest of us.”

Olim Goldbuckle cupped his hands to shout, “And the Daewar? What do you think we can offer to your plan?”

Colin Stonetooth gazed at the Daewar prince and suppressed a smile. “You, Prince Olim, have the place.”

“What place?” Olim snapped.

“He’s right!” Slide Tolec yelled. “The Daewar have a great, secret cavern somewhere. I have seen it.”

“That place,” Colin Stonetooth nodded. “A place that all can share, and by right must share. The Daewar because they found it first, the Theiwar because it is in their claimed territory …”

“In Theiwar territory?” Slide Tolec demanded. “Where?”

“… the Daergar because they have the materials to build it into a stronghold,” Colin continued, “the Klar – and the Einar and any others who care to, because they can assist in its construction and in its defense.”

Olim Goldbuckle was fuming. How did the outlander know of his secret place – of Urkhan’s findings? “And what of you, Hylar?” he shouted, angrily. “You tell us all that we might offer – what we can do with our own resources – but what of you? What do you offer?”

Colin Stonetooth spread his hands in an eloquent shrug. “We know how,” he said. Then his voice became commanding as he turned toward the ranked Theiwar. “Slide Tolec, we are within your people’s borders. Do you grant us permission to go underground?”

Startled at the polite, ceremonial question, Slide glanced around at his followers, then nodded. “I give permission,” he said. “We’d like to see what the Daewar found here, too.”

Colin turned to the Daewar prince. “Olim Goldbuckle, the gate behind me, in the cliff, is of Daewar crafting. Will you honor your neighbors by inviting us through it, in peace?”

“And if I don’t?” Olim demanded.

“Then we’ll take it down ourselves!” Slide Tolec shouted.

“This is Theiwar territory!”

“I already have a company of warriors below,” Colin said mildly. “It would be better if you invited us in.”

Olim Goldbuckle, the master of maneuvering, knew when he was outmaneuvered. “We will open the gate,” he conceded.

“I call a Council of Thanes!” Colin Stonetooth announced so all could hear. “To be held in Thorbardin!”

Every eye in the crowd turned to him in puzzlement. “Where?” some asked.

Even Jerem Longslate stared at his chieftain in surprise. “Thor … bardin, Sire? Is this the name of our Everbardin?”

“In honor of the past.” Colin nodded. “And of the future.”

Part VI

THORBARDIN

Thorbardin

Beneath Cloudseeker Peak

Century of Wind

Decade of Hickory

Early Spring, Year of Zinc

Chapter 24

THE COVENANT AND THE ASSASSIN

By the time snows lay deep upon the Kharolis range, the mountain called Cloudseeker swarmed with dwarves, outside and in. The Council of the Thanes had lasted seventeen days, and scribes would be at work for years to come, recording and interpreting all that had been decided.

With the Ten at his back, Willen Ironmaul’s guards positioned at strategic points, and several companies of footmen at his call, Colin Stonetooth of the Hylar could have dominated the proceedings. But he was wise enough not to. This place beneath the peaks, which he had named Thorbardin, would be his clan’s Everbardin, and the Hylar chieftain was determined to keep resentments to a minimum among those who would share its space. So Colin Stonetooth had a huge, seven-sided table crafted and placed on a wide, flat ledge on the shore of the Urkhan Sea, and brought the leaders of the thanes together there.

Each prince and chieftain chose his own place at the table, and Colin Stonetooth was the last to be seated – even after Faze I, Highbulp of Clan Aghar, who was so awed by the proceedings and the presences around him that he did the only thing he could think of to do. He laid his head on the great table and went to sleep.

Olim Goldbuckle chose the bench on the east, with his back to the brightest part of the great cavern, where the Daewar already had significant delvings going on. Vog Ironface of the Daergar chose a southern seat, Slide Tolec of the Theiwar a bench on the north, with Bole Trune of the Klar on his left, and the little Aghar Highbulp snoring on his right, and two benches remained. A heavily bearded dwarf named Grist Stonemill, selected by the Einar to speak for them, took the one on Faze I’s right, and Colin Stonetooth sat down beside the Daewar prince.

The Ten stood behind him, and others moved forward to stand behind their leaders – Gem Bluesleeve and his Golden Hammer guards behind the Daewar prince, Brule Vaportongue and a dozen Theiwar behind Slide Tolec, eight masked figures behind the Daergar chief, a collection of unshorn Klar behind Bole Trune, several Einar behind Grist Stonemill, and a strange-looking little figure called Grand Notioner behind the sleeping Faze I.

“In the place from which we Hylar came,” Colin said, “we used a seven-sided table for matters of council, and none knew why, because only six sides were needed. Now I see that seven is, indeed, the proper number.” He looked from one to another of them. “Reorx attend us here,” he said. “Give us the wisdom that we must have.”

“Reorx attend,” Olim Goldbuckle muttered, and others at the table nodded.

And so began seventeen days of debate and council, during which everything from the name of the place to a list of agreements for public and private use of its resources was worked out.

The Daewar would keep and hold the easternmost shore of the Urkhan Sea, where an arm of it curved around a bend in the cavern. The quartz above made it a brightly lighted bay, the brightest natural place in the immense system. They would claim this shore and the stone beyond it, where they were already delving their city of New Daebardin.

The Theiwar would claim the northwest shore and the stone beyond it, as far as the entrance to the cavern Urkhan had called the first warren. The Daergar would own the south shore where the quartz-strata light was dimmest and would turn their rubble heaps over to the Aghar, who preferred surroundings such as rubble heaps from other peoples’ delves.

The Daewar would have preferred that both Daergar and gully dwarves be as far from them as possible, preferably clear across the sea. But Olim consented, since the bend in the natural cavern would block any view of unsightly digs from the Daewar city.

The Klar, those of them who chose to make homes in the subterranean chamber, would claim and hold the deep regions at the east end of a second natural warren where an arm of the sea had its shores.

Most of the Einar wanted no part of the caverns, preferring shallower digs. Those who did, though, were given leave to affiliate themselves with whichever Thorbardin clan suited them. For the rest, who were now beginning to adopt the name Neidar, which they had heard from Cale Greeneye and his adventurers, a pledge was made. The Neidar would remain outside to tend the fields and flocks that needed the seasons and the sun. In return for supplying the deep lairs with grains, meat, and lumber, they would have right of entry into Thorbardin any time they chose to do so and protection against their enemies by the armies within the stronghold.

The seventh place at the table, henceforth, would be the Neidar seat.

The two largest warrens would be common ground for all the thanes. Leveled and improved by workers using the giant tractor worms, they would be enriched with topsoil from outside – and with the fertilizers that Bardion Ledge, once waste warden of Thorin, knew how to process. The warrens would become subterranean farms.

The Urkhan Sea itself would be common property to all, and Talam Bendiron was already at work designing a system of counterweight-powered aqueducts to do away with such primitive and wasteful procedures as bucket brigades.

Each city would be as self-contained as it wished in such things as forges and shops, markets and housing, town customs and enforcement. But a system of tunnel roads and cable-cart ways would connect all the cities and would have common usage.

Frost Steelbit and Gran Molden revealed intricate plans for a gated entry to the south, utilizing the Daewar’s hinged plug concept and Daergar iron for sheathing, combined by Hylar craft. The new gate would give ready access to the best Einar fields and provide access for metals from the Daergar mines.

It was suggested that a second such gate be placed at the northern end of the underground realm, but that was set aside for later consideration. It was also suggested that the great tunnel the Daewar had bored through Sky’s End might be converted to a trade route – assuming things beyond Kal-Thax eventually settled down enough to allow trade with the outside.

The armies of the thanes would be separate but would be at the common call to defend Kal-Thax against the threat of humans, ogres, or anything else that might threaten. And the Hylar agreed to train the troops in the ways that they had learned.

There would be exploration to determine whether a magma pit could be created to power foundries, as in Thoradin. There would be surveys of places suitable for installation of sun-tunnels and a complete mapping of the natural ventilation system, which seemed to flow from a deep, walled valley to the south – that same valley the Theiwar called Deadfall – with exhausts high above, among the Windweavers themselves.

So many plans and ideas were discussed, so many measures decided in those seventeen days, that hordes of scribes were kept busy just jotting things down for later enscrollment.

And somewhere along the way, Olim Goldbuckle glanced at the tomes of his scribes and turned to frown at Colin Stonetooth. “We have overlooked something,” the Daewar said. “Every thane but one has an assigned place for its delvings. Where will the Hylar live?”

Before Colin Stonetooth could respond, a voice behind him said, “There. There is Hybardin.”

They turned. Behind the Hylar chieftain’s bench, old Mistral Thrax leaned on his crutch. His free arm was outstretched, pointing upward, and the palm of his hand glowed dull red. As though there were no one there but himself, the ancient dwarf muttered, “It is the Life Tree. The Life Tree of the Hylar. There shall be Hybardin.”

He was pointing out across the sea, at the great stalactite standing above the waters, its upper reaches blending into the distant ceilings of the cavern.

“Mistral Thrax has spoken.” Colin Stonetooth nodded. “That will be the home of the Hylar. We will build our city within it.”

Olim Goldbuckle’s frown deepened. “The highest of the deep?” he muttered.

Colin glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” the Daewar prince snapped. “But now I have a question, and perhaps the Hylar have a suggestion about it. We have avoided this subject until now, but its time is here. Who will rule Thorbardin?”

All around the table they went silent, casting suspicious glances at one another.

Colin Stonetooth took a deep breath. It was the question he had dreaded, the one which could bring all their plans down around their ears. No Daewar was willing to be ruled by a non-Daewar, nor any Theiwar by a non-Theiwar, nor any Daergar by any but a Daergar.

“There are no kings here,” Slide Tolec hissed. “Are there any who would be?”

“I am prince of the Daewar,” Olim Goldbuckle noted.

“But not a king,” Vog Ironface rumbled. He turned toward Colin Stonetooth, and for the first time removed his mask. The features behind it were sharp and chiseled, like the face of a fierce fox. “And you, Hylar? Would you be king?”

Colin Stonetooth shook his head. “The Theiwar is right,” he said. “There are no kings here. Nor need there be any. Should the day ever come when Thorbardin needs a king, then – trust Reorx – a king may arise. But that day is not now. I would have Thorbardin governed by pact, not by power.”

“Then there must be such a pact,” Slide Tolec said.

“A sworn alliance,” Olim Goldbuckle mused. “A solemn covenant, forged from our oaths and our honor. A Covenant of Thanes.”

Aside, where a grim and silent group watched the proceedings, one sneered. “No king,” he muttered. “So they say. Yet the Hylar says there may be a king one day. I say that day will come much sooner than they think.”

And around him, others nodded while a few muttered, “Glome shall be king. Soon there will be enough of us.”

Glome the Assassin no longer looked as he had a season past, when for a brief time he had led the Theiwar. He had assembled a collection of disguises, which let him seem to be anything he chose to be. Today he seemed a Daewar footman, with a cloak covering his helm. It was part of the power he held over his followers. He could be anyone, it seemed. And he could go anywhere.

His followers were mostly Theiwar and Daergar, but among them now were a number of rebellious Daewar, disgruntled at the upside-down world to which their prince had led them, and a fair number of Klar, angry at the bullying of Bole Trune. The group was a subversion – a growing, ragtag band held together by a common belief that Glome the Assassin would prevail in Kal-Thax. Not everyone was happy with this council of thanes or with the kind of future their leaders envisioned. Many had been recruited simply by the promise that Glome would wind up in charge here, and that his friends would be rewarded. Never had there been a king in Kal-Thax, but there would be. And great wealth would go to those who made him king.

“Not Daewar,” Glome had told them. “Not Theiwar, not Daergar, not Klar. The king will be all of these … as I am all of these. I will be king.”

“Our leaders do not lead,” a Theiwar growled. “The Daewar prince, the mighty Daergar … even Slide Tolec of Thane Theiwar has surrendered to these Hylar. They give away our rights. They make pacts which will leave us as weak and soft as porous stone. They abandon the old customs because the Hylar have made them afraid. It is time for a king in Kal-Thax. A strong king,”

“Glome is strong,” another muttered. “Glome deserves to be king.”

For now, though, Glome and his supporters bided their time, waiting for their opportunity to strike.

*

When all of the articles of the covenant had been debated and the final arguments resolved, Colin Stonetooth had a forge set on the shore of Urkhan’s Sea, and dwarves of all the thanes gathered for the Hylar ceremony of binding and bonding. Ingots of seven metals were heated on the glowing coals, and a great anvil was wreathed in the woods of the stone. Atop the anvil, the ingots were laid one upon another, so that their shape was the shape of a star. Then, one after another, the leaders of the thanes struck with hammers, bonding the metals together into one single artifact.

Colin Stonetooth’s was the final blow, and his hammer rang echoes from the distances of the subterranean land. When he raised the hammer after striking, no ridge or seam remained on the surface of the joined ingots. There upon the forge lay a perfect fourteen-pointed amulet, smooth and gleaming from perimeter to perimeter.

“It is a covenant,” Colin Stonetooth intoned, and around him the others echoed his words. “It is a covenant … covenant … covenant.”

“Joined in seamless bond,” Colin said, and the voices around echoed, “Bond … bond … bond.”

“The Covenant of Thanes,” Colin said. “Thanes … thanes … thanes,” the voices echoed.

“A solemn pledge of all here gathered. A covenant of the forge … forge … forge … forge.”

“The Covenant of Thorbardin!” He laid aside his hammer, and the vast distances of the mighty cavern whispered the echoes, “Thorbardin … Thorbardin … Thorbardin!” With his calloused bare hand he picked up the hot amulet from the forge, turned, and strode to the lapping shore. With a heave, he threw the amulet far out over the water, and a puff of steam arose where it sank beneath the waves.

“Forever,” Colin Stonetooth whispered. “Thorbardin forever.”

*

When word came to the old fortress on Sky’s End that the Hylar would move one last time, Tera Sharn – now round-bellied with the child within her – assembled her belongings and began the loading of packs as the Hylar people waited for their escort. It was nearly fifty miles through the great tunnel to the place her father had named Thorbardin, they said. It would be a long, dark journey, but she was prepared. Her child would be born in Everbardin.

Other arrangements had been made, though. It was more than an escort company that arrived at the north end of the tunnel. Willen Ironmaul came with most of the Hylar guard and a string of Calnar horses pulling Daewar carts. It was Colin Stonetooth’s desire that his people should make the journey to their new home in comfort, and it was Willen’s desire that his wife, carrying their child within her, should ride in ease and style.

One last time, then, the Hylar people packed their goods and their belongings and set out for the place which would be home.

“The last journey,” Willen promised Tera. “Everbardin is found, and your father waits there for us. The Hylar will not move again.”

“The last journey,” she repeated. “It is well, my love. And the other people? They are there, too?”

“The thanes are bonded,” he assured her. “Only Colin Stonetooth could have managed it, but manage it he did.”

*

Despite its immensity, the great central cavern of the lake now teemed with activity. Dwarves were everywhere, it seemed: dwarves planning, delving, firing up forges, hauling stones and ores; dwarves huddling together in thought; dwarves arguing and squabbling; dwarves with hammers, bores and chisels. The cavern sang with the music of doing.

The Daewar were superb delvers, but had little of the arts of construction. The Theiwar knew the uses of bracing and the laying of walls, but knew little of tunneling. The Daergar were miners and could trace the patterns of stone better than any of the rest. The Hylar were skilled at invention and at the directing of light, wind, and water. Little by little, though, as they wandered about one another’s digs, the skills began to blend, and the great natural cavern began to be a constructed place, suitable for a mighty stronghold.

Colin Stonetooth had gone with Wight Anvil’s-Cap to see the stone-cutting methods of the Daewar, then had left the chief delver there, taking notes, and had strolled away to look at the scrolls where Talam Bendiron was showing a cluster of Theiwar how to channel water into their lairs. Beyond, the Hylar chieftain inspected a glass furnace where mirrors were being crafted and sun-tunnels planned. Then he strolled on, accompanied only by the Ten, and paused at some distance to gaze out across the lake, where the great stalactite stood above the distant waters like a pillar supporting a world. His eyes rose slowly, following the contours of the huge, living stone monolith as it widened in the distance above. It was an awesome sight, like standing beneath an enormous mushroom, and he nodded. “Mistral Thrax was right,” he said. “It is where the Hylar belong. My people will be comfortable there.”

“Aye,” Jerem Longslate agreed. “It is the Life Tree of the Hylar.”

“The heart of Everbardin,” Colin muttered, then gasped as a javelin seemed to blossom from his breast. Thrown by a strong arm, the shaft pierced him through, its thud drowned by a chorus of shouts as a flood of dwarves raced from shadows below the stepped cliffs to fall upon the Ten.

“Defend!” Jerem Longslate roared, drawing his blade as he unslung his shield. Beside him, Colin Stonetooth sank to his knees, his hands clawing at the javelin in his chest. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“Ring and defend!” Jerem shouted, deflecting another javelin with his shield. “Our chief is down!”

The Ten gathered around their fallen leader, shields up and blades at the ready, as the horde of attackers hit them like storm waters on a rocky shore. Shouts of “For Glome!” and “Glome the King!” rang in their ears, and their Hylar blades lashed out and came back dripping blood.

Chapter 25

SEALED IN BLOOD

Glome had awaited his time, and the opportunity had come. For days he had watched the leaders of the thanes succumb, one after another, to the strange new ideas brought forward by the outlander strangers who called themselves Hylar. He knew why the thanes’ chiefs were so malleable. It was because they were afraid of these new dwarves.

But Glome was not afraid of them. He had seen them fight, and he knew that a headlong attack in force was not the way to defeat them. But such an attack was rarely his way. Strong and brutal, devious and opportunistic, Glome the Assassin had risen to power among the Theiwar because he did not take foolish chances. His chance here, he knew, would be to catch the Hylar unwary and wipe out their leadership.

The opportunity came when the Hylar chieftain, satisfied that the foolish covenant between the leaders of the clans was a solemn pact, dismissed his soldiers and sent them off to bring the rest of the Hylar people to this cavern.

To the crafty mind of Glome, it was the height of stupidity, that the Hylar chieftain so trusted in a thing as fragile as a promise. Promises, to Glome, were simply things said to lull an antagonist long enough to strike him. He could hardly believe it when he saw the mounted guards of the Hylar vanish into the Daewar’s tunnel, followed in force by the footmen, carrying construction tools, and then saw Colin Stonetooth wandering along the lake shore accompanied only by his ten bodyguards.

For a moment, he suspected a trap. But it was no trap. The Hylar trusted those he had dealt with and had left himself undefended. It took only minutes for Glome to rally and place his supporters, and it was Glome himself who launched the attack and saw his javelin pierce the light breastplate of the Hylar chief. Then, by the hundreds, the rebels fell upon the bodyguards and bore them down.

For long minutes, the scene at the lakeshore was noise and confusion as attackers climbed over one another for a chance to use their weapons. Then at Glome’s roar of command the rebels backed away and stared at the huge pile of dead and dying dwarves. There were a hundred or more of them, piled like twitching dolls on the place where the Hylar bodyguard had gone down. But even as they stared at the pile of bodies, the pile shifted. It surged upward, corpses rolling away, and a half-dozen dripping Hylar shields protruded above it. In a moment, the shields had warriors behind them, a tight ring of armor on a hill of death, and those rebels who were close enough felt the sting of whistling blades from among the shields.

In a panic, the attackers fell back. Some turned to run, but Glome’s shout stopped them. “Attack!” he ordered. “They are only a few! Cut them down! Bring out the body of their chief!”

It was easier said than done. By threes and fives, rebel dwarves charged the Hylar defense, and by threes and fives they fell, adding to the carnage.

Still, the numbers were overwhelming. A Hylar guard went down with an axe in his back. Another fell to sword cuts and another to a thrown hammer. Glome heard distant shouts and saw dwarves coming from everywhere – Theiwar, Daergar, Klar, and, beyond them, bright ranks of Daewar.

Only one Hylar remained now, standing among the dead, turning this way and that, his sword and shield as blood red as the piled death at his feet. It was the one called Jerem Longslate, the one known as First of the Ten.

Two Theiwar rebels rushed him, one from each side, their dark Daergar blades swinging. He seemed barely to move, but one of the attackers thudded into the cutting edge of his shield while the other’s sword flew from his grasp, twirling upward, then fell back upon its owner, point first.

Missiles whined around him, caroming off his shield, helm, and gauntlets, yet still he stood. Shouting crowds of covenant dwarves were closing rapidly on the throng of rebels. With a curse, Glome grabbed one of his own fighters by the back of the neck and charged the lone Hylar, thrusting his follower ahead of him like a shield. At the last instant, he flung the rebel forward upon the Hylar’s sword, ducked, and rolled beneath him, stabbing upward.

It was over then, and, as Jerem Longslate fell, Glome the Assassin kicked and rummaged among the bleeding bodies until he found the Hylar chief, Colin Stonetooth. The Hylar was dead, still carrying Glome’s javelin in his breast. With a heave, Glome lifted the body and held it high above his head, turning to face the dwarves rushing toward him from the digs.

“The Hylar is dead!” he shouted. “See! He is dead! He who made you betray the old ways is gone, and the pact is broken!”

While Glome’s followers crowded around him, wide-eyed, the thousands from the digs crowded them, pressing forward to see what was going on, yet holding back from the dripping blades of the rebels.

“I have saved you all from the outsider!” Glome shouted. “I, Glome, have freed you! The covenant is done! Kal-Thax is restored to its rightful owners!”

The crowds surged as more new arrivals pressed in, stunned faces gawking at the scene before them. Glome thought he saw awe and respect in those faces, and he began to gloat. He had done it! He had won! “See me!” he shouted. “I am Glome! I am Theiwar, and I am Daewar, and I am Daergar, and I am Klar! I am your savior! I have killed the Hylar! Kneel before me! Kneel and call me king!”

Still holding the lifeless, blood-drenched body of the Hylar chieftain above his head, Glome turned slowly, letting them all see. He turned and hesitated. Slide Tolec stood before him, staring at him with stunned eyes. “Kneel before me, Slide Tolec of the Theiwar!” Glome demanded. “Kneel, and I may have mercy upon you.”

“Glome,” the Theiwar said. “Glome, what have you done?”

“I have killed the Hylar,” Glome repeated. “The false covenant is broken.”

“Broken?” Slide shook his head, slowly. “You have broken nothing, Glome, except a pledge. You were Theiwar once. I am Theiwar, and I gave my pledge. You have broken it.”

Behind him, Glome heard another voice, hollow and angry. “And mine!” Glome turned to stare at the featureless mask of Vog Ironface.

“And mine!” another voice called, from where a large crowd of Daewar had gathered. “I gave the bond of the forge, murderer. The pledge of Olim Goldbuckle.”

Now crowding toward the assassin were a large group of wild Klar, with Bole Trune in the lead, brandishing a heavy club.

“People of Kal-Thax!” Glome shouted, desperation in his voice. “Your leaders have betrayed you! The outlander Hylar led them in false directions! Cast them aside and support me! I will be your king!”

Many in the crowd hesitated, unsure of what to do, their sheer numbers blocking those who pressed toward Glome and his band. Then from the lake’s edge a dusty Daewar delver, his working hammer still in his hand, shouted, “Look! Look at the water!”

Those near him turned. From the stacked bodies at Glome’s feet, blood had flowed downward to the water’s edge – Daewar blood mingling with Theiwar blood, Theiwar with Daergar, Daergar with Klar, and all of them with Hylar – and as the runnels of gore reached the lapping water of Urkhan’s Sea, the water turned pink, then red, the stain spreading outward from the bank.

Nearly a hundred yards it spread, then the waters there seemed to roil upward, like a rising tide. The surface broke, and a figure arose from it, to stand as though suspended just above its surface. A tattered, pained figure with white hair and whiskers outlining a sad, ancient face. As though walking on the ground, though its feet were inches above the lake’s surface, the apparition made its way toward the shore as dwarves scattered and backed away ahead of it. When it was at the shoreline, it sagged tiredly, leaning upon its twin-tined spear, and raised a hand, palm forward. Its fingers opened and exposed a fourteen-pointed amulet.

In a voice that was like the winds in the tunnels, it said, “The covenant was forged by fire and tempered by water. Now it is sealed by blood.” The phantom lowered its hand and straightened. Raising its spear, it pointed the tines directly at Glome, who stood transfixed, still holding the dead Hylar chieftain above his head. “You, Glome. Do you know now that you have completed the thing you thought to undo? Until this hour, Thorbardin was only a promise. Now Thorbardin lives.”

The figure turned away and was gone. All along the shoreline, eyes wide with awe stared where it had been, then turned. Growls erupted here and there in the crowd and became a roar of anger as mobs of dwarves – all kinds of dwarves, armed with hammers, chisels, stones, or whatever was at hand – surged toward the cluster of rebels surrounding Glome.

With a cry, Glome dropped the body of Colin Stonetooth and retreated, pushing through his pressed followers, heading for the dimness of the tunnel that led to the first warren. “Hold them back,” he screamed at his followers. “Defend! I order you to defend!”

Confused and frightened, the rebels milled about, some facing the oncoming horde, some trying to run. For a moment, it seemed they would hold where they were, wielding swords and lances against the motley tools of the mob. But a path opened through the mob, and a solid mass of Daewar warriors charged through. Gem Bluesleeve’s Golden Hammer had arrived from New Daebardin.

The rebels turned, separated, and fled in panic, thousands of howling dwarves on their heels.

In dark shadows near the warren tunnel, Glome the Assassin lay hidden as the chase went by, then crept upward to the cleft where the tunnel began. Behind him, diminishing in various directions, were the sounds of conflict – of his rebels being run down by an enraged mob. But that didn’t really matter to him. All he wanted was a place to hide, a means of escape. He was almost at the cleft when a lone figure stepped from the shadows to face him.

“I know you, Glome,” Slide Tolec said coldly. “I knew where you would be.”

Slide knew Glome too well to give him a chance to strike. Even before the assassin could raise his sword, the Theiwar chieftain lunged at him, and the axe he swung nearly cut Glome in two.

Some of the rebels made it as far as the Theiwar digs before they were cut down. Others fell at the lake’s edge, and others beneath the jutting cliffs that blocked the northwest shore. A hundred or more of them, rallied by the best among them, made a stand at a place that had no name and were methodically cut to pieces there by Daewar footmen, Daergar swordsmen, Theiwar blades, and Klar stone axes.

Two former Daewar, hunted down in the first warren later, were disarmed and chained by Gem Bluesleeve’s guard. From somewhere, delvers brought little silver bat-bells and hung them from the prisoners’ chains. From a distance, the Daewar watched as a rampaging tractor worm located the source of the sound and smashed at it until the bells no longer sounded.

Olim Goldbuckle himself went to the road tunnel to meet the returning Hylar, and Willen Ironmaul and Tera Sharn saw a thing there that no living dwarf had ever seen. The prince of the Daewar of Kal-Thax had tears on his cheeks as he told them what had occurred.

*

On a bright winter morning, the bodies of Colin Stonetooth and the Ten were carried in solemn procession along the great corridor that was the source of winds, and the winds seemed to hush their whispers as the drums of the Hylar beat a requiem.

They were buried with great honor in the deep, walled canyon that the Theiwar had always called Deadfall. But as Olim Goldbuckle called upon Reorx and all the other gods to recognize and honor those being buried there, he gave the place a new name.

From that day forward, the place would be known as the Valley of the Thanes.

And high above, all around the crests of the great walls of the valley, lifeless figures dangled from iron spikes. The bodies of Glome and his followers had been taken out of Thorbardin and given to Cale Greeneye and his Neidar adventurers. It was Cale’s tribute to his father, that the bodies of his murderers be hung where their lifeless eyes could look down upon what they had done, and from where – when their bones decayed and fell from the spikes – they would be lost among the rubble of the cliffs.

For a time, Tera Sharn’s grief at her father’s death kept her to her quarters, and Willen Ironmaul stalked the Hylar digs, hard-eyed and lonely, tormented by guilt that he had not been there when his chieftain – his beloved wife’s own father – needed him. Yet the time of grieving eventually passed, and the two were together again. Still, at times Willen caught her eyes upon him, brooding and speculative, deep with thoughts she was not ready to share.

*

In a way, the death of Colin Stonetooth had bonded the clans closer, as though the bloody, senseless act of Glome and his followers stood as an example of everything evil and pointless about the old ways, when tribal rivalries had overshadowed all other interests. Now Daewar, Theiwar, Daergar, and Klar had fought shoulder to shoulder against enemies from within, and they saw one another with wiser eyes.

Still, it was as though the heart had gone out of Thorbardin. Colin Stonetooth had been that heart. Now the thanes went about their delvings grimly and separately, each tribe progressing at its own rate as they tried to build homes within the great cavern of the underground sea. The Daewar delved rapidly, but to no great depth. The Theiwar hollowed out lairs that were little more than caves within caves, and the Daergar stayed to the dark places, unwilling to come near to anyone else.

The population of Thorbardin had grown greatly as Einar from the outside came to join this or that clan, but the increased numbers of dwarves only made food scarce, as no real systems of production and trade had yet been perfected.

Then, on a morning when the sun of Krynn shone radiant down the quartz veins and the subterranean lake sparkled with its light, a sound arose that brought people from their labors and their lairs. The Hylar drums were singing again, that same quickening, pulsing beat that they had played before on the slopes of Cloudseeker. The music the Hylar named Call to Balladine.

The drums were muffled, here deep beneath the mountains, but every ear in Thorbardin heard the call and most responded. By the thousands, following the lake shore, they went to see what was going on.

The table of seven sides was erected again on the scrubbed stone of that same shore where Colin Stonetooth had died, and behind it waited a dozen Hylar drummers and Olim Goldbuckle, Prince of the Daewar. When the thane leaders were present, Olim asked them solemnly to take the seats they had claimed before. When they were seated, Tera Sharn came to stand at her father’s place at the seventh side. With Willen Ironmaul at her shoulder, seeming to tower over her, she gazed silently at one and then another of the four chieftains gathered at the table. When her gaze rested on Olim Goldbuckle she asked, “You ordered the drums?”

“It is how the thanes were first called.” The Daewar shrugged, his blond whiskers glowing in the subdued light. “I thought it appropriate, and the drummers agreed. We have things to discuss at this table, and now we are assembled.” He glanced around. “Well, most of us are.”

The Aghar were absent this time, because the entire tribe had wandered off somewhere and had not yet been found. And most of the Einar had retired to their valleys to prepare for spring.

But the Daewar prince was there, and Slide Tolec, with Vog Ironface of the Daergar, and the Klar leader, Bole Trune. The Hylar drums had called, and they had responded. With wide, dark eyes as wise as her father’s, Tera Sharn regarded them one by one. Then she asked, “You … all of you … avenged my father. Why?”

There was silence for a moment, then Olim Goldbuckle said, “It was not vengeance. We joined to keep the peace of the covenant.”

“Glome and his followers would have brought chaos upon Thorbardin.” Slide Tolec nodded. “In Kal-Thax, we have seen the face of chaos. We have despised one another and have paid the price for it.”

“The Hylar, your father,” Vog rumbled, “brought wisdom here.”

“I see,” Tera said. “And now my father is gone.”

“Which is why we are here at this table today,” Olim said. “Who will lead the Hylar now?”

Behind Tera, Willen Ironmaul said proudly, “Our people have asked my wife to take her father’s place.”

“You, and not your brother?” Vog raised his mask, looking at the young dwarf woman curiously. Even to his Daergar eyes her beauty was obvious, as apparent as the fullness of her belly. “Your Hylar would follow a female chief?”

“My brother Cale Greeneye favors the open sky above his head,” Tera said. “He is Neidar and has no wish to lead. He has told our people that.”

“What have you told your people?” Olim asked.

“I have given them no answer,” she said. “Though I have thought about the matter.” She hesitated, collecting her thoughts, then said, “Colin Stonetooth, my father, was a wise person. He looked always ahead, and never back. And because of that wisdom, he made a mistake … twice. He trusted the right people, seeing the path ahead, but he failed to see the wrong ones behind. At Thorin, which is now Thoradin, it was humans who betrayed him.”

A resonant growl came from Vog’s mask, but Tera raised a small hand. “Not all humans,” she said. “Those my father trusted as friends were – as much as they could be – true friends. But others were not. And then here, where we found others of our own kind, he trusted. He trusted and was blind to the enemies who stalked him.”

“As we all were,” Olim nodded.

“I am my father’s daughter,” Tera said. “His blood is my blood, and his ways my ways. Sooner or later I would make the same mistakes he made, because I see as he saw. Therefore I will propose another for chieftain of the Hylar, but I believe I would like for each of you to approve before I do.”

They stared at her blankly. “Why ask us?” Slide Tolec tilted his head. “Each thane in Thorbardin is independent. The Covenant is clear about that.”

“So it is,” she agreed. “But there is much to do here if Thorbardin as my father envisioned it – and as each of you envision it – is to be built. Old differences among the clans must be recognized, and different ways respected, but the Council of Thanes must act as one on matters of the future. To do things which have never been done before, all must work together. This Council alone can make that occur. Therefore I ask your approval before I say to my people that my husband, Willen Ironmaul, should be their chief.”

Behind her, Willen’s mouth dropped open. “Me? Tera, I am no chief! I’m just a soldier. I wouldn’t know how to …”

Tera looked around at him and slipped her hand into his. “No one is a chief until the time comes to lead,” she said.

Slowly, a grin spread across Olim Goldbuckle’s wide face, parting his golden whiskers. “You are your father’s daughter,” he said. “I wonder if your Hylar suspect how fortunate they are.”

“I would welcome Willen Ironmaul to this table,” Slide Tolec said solemnly. “I know as well as anyone that being chief comes of necessity more than by design.”

Vog Ironface hesitated, then raised his mask. Glinting ferret eyes in a face that sloped like a fox’s studied the big Hylar guardsman, and he nodded. “I have seen you fight,” Vog said. “There is more to your strategies than strength and precision. There is something unseen. What is it?”

“It is order.” Willen shrugged. “The teacher who taught us how to fight also taught us why and when. He said that skills without honor – which I think is nothing more than order of the heart – are like a forge without fire.”

“Honor is order?” the Daergar mused. “Order of the heart. Interesting. Wisdom” — he glanced at Tera — “and honor. Willen Ironmaul, Vog Ironface will welcome you to this table.”

“As will I,” Olim Goldbuckle chuckled. “Maybe some order of the heart is what is needed to get us all moving forward again.”

At the far side, Bole Trune rose to his feet, drew his cudgel, and placed it on the table before him. Then he turned to Willen Ironmaul. “Klar have trusted Hylar,” he rumbled. “Bole Trune trusts you.”

A few days later the muffled drums said that Willen Ironmaul had been named chieftain of Thane Hylar of Thorbardin. And in the song of the drums was a resonance that echoed in the hearts of dwarves of all the thanes, quickening their steps as they worked. Purpose, they felt, had been restored.

Chapter 26

THE ROAD TO REASON

Through the final weeks of winter forges rang beneath Cloudseeker Peak, and the vapors rising above the Windweavers were warm from the fires far below. Though the clans of Kal-Thax had acted in unison for centuries to defend against intrusion into their lands, this was the first time in history that they had actually worked together to achieve something positive, and deep in the heart of the mountain, their combined skills began to show visible results.

To the Daewar’s genius at delving were added the Hylar arts of stonecutting and masonry, and the delves were no longer limited in their expanse. With the introduction of lift platforms, like those invented by Handil Farsight, the difficulty of working from level to level in a dig was almost eliminated. The dark steel of the Daergar proved excellent for the making of rails and cables, and the dwarves began construction of a series of subterranean roads to connect the centers of all the separate towns of Thorbardin and to accommodate cable carts to and from the warrens.

Boats were crafted from lumber brought by the Neidar or traded from the region’s independent Einar, and wharves were chiseled into the slopes of the lakeshore. From there, cables were strung out to the base of the great, living stalactite above the water and fixed there. From here would begin the construction of the Hylar’s delves, working upward through the stone and – eventually – downward from the mountain’s peak through shafts that would later accommodate sun-tunnels.

Most of what would someday exist here was still in the minds and on the scrolls of the crafters, but it was begun and there would be no stopping it.

The thane leaders envisioned Thorbardin as a fortress, a stronghold from which the dwarves could issue forth at will to protect their fields and valleys. No longer could all of Kal-Thax be, simply, closed. It was far too large, and too accessible, for the growing press of outsiders to be entirely kept out. In times long past, when intruders were few, that might have been possible. But now it was not a practical option, and the dwarven people were nothing if not practical. Still, the realm could be held against settlement, and this was the intention of the new covenant.

Some outsiders would get in. Some might journey across Kal-Thax. But with the fortress of Thorbardin dominating the realm, none would take root there.

An option of a different sort was proposed by Tera Sharn and presented by Willen Ironmaul. If the tide of outsiders could not be stopped, they suggested, then why not turn it, as a shield turns a lance?

They puzzled over the idea and how it might be accomplished, and it was Olim Goldbuckle who came up with the answer. “Since we don’t want all those people coming here,” he suggested, “maybe we could give them somewhere else to go instead. Most people – humans in particular – are more likely to follow a road than to cross it.”

Thus, even before the first thaw of spring was felt in the valleys, Cale Greeneye rode out from Kal-Thax with a company of Neidar volunteers to scout the internal ranges, and Willen Ironmaul rode eastward with a hundred mounted Hylar warriors led by his new guard captain, Sand Sakor, and accompanied by Gem Bluesleeve and his Golden Hammer footmen. On behalf of the Council of Thanes, Willen intended to have a talk with whoever was in charge in southeastern Ergoth. The humans who lived there were as beset by the flood of refugees from the east as the dwarves of Kal-Thax were.

During the Hylar migration, they had seen human citadels scattered here and there across the countryside. Homes and fiefdoms to the knights of the lords that governed the land, some of these were no more than manor houses perched atop ridges and rocky hills overlooking the fields and herds of their supplicants. But there was one that Cale Greeneye had seen from a distance and reported. It was a great, walled keep atop a high bluff and was obviously the home of someone important. It sat several miles north of the field where the Hylar had defeated the Cobar raiders, and Willen suspected that the place was the seat of that gray knight who had spoken warning to him on that day – the one Glendon Hawke called Lord Charon. For Calnar horses and sturdy Daewar footmen, the place was not too far away, and the man had seemed to be in charge. Willen decided he would be the one to see.

Two days out from the lower slopes, the dwarf troop entered tilled fields and meadows, with little villages visible here and there among them. A few miles farther and the great citadel was in sight. It was as Cale had described it – a tall fortification of gray stone, with ramparts and parapets where banners flew. It was not a great structure by Hylar standards, but better than most things Willen had seen built by humans.

He wasn’t sure what protocols were involved in approaching a human stronghold to discuss business, but he had observed back in Thoradin that humans were very much like dwarves in their thinking, except for their inability to really concentrate on anything for very long. So he took the direct approach. With his troops at his back, the new chieftain of the Hylar of Thorbardin simply headed for the place and assumed he would be noticed soon.

The first to notice the dwarves were villagers at a little place where thatch-roofed huts crowded along what seemed to be the beginning of a road. At first glance there were no people visible, either in the village or thereabouts in the crusted fields where the melting snows had left gray-white patterns atop the dark mud beneath. No one was stirring, but there was smoke above the huts, so Willen had a trumpeter blow salute, then led his troops right into the center of the place. Here and there shutters parted, and doors opened a crack. Shadowed eyes stared out at the short, armored creatures perched on the tall horses, then shutters slammed and doors echoed to the sounds of bolts being dropped into place. From somewhere a flimsy arrow – like a quarrel from a badly strung crossbow – arced in the sunlight and glanced off Willen’s helm.

He raised his shield and quartered around in his high saddle. “Here, now!” he roared. “There’s no call for that!”

Somewhere nearby, a great squawking and flailing erupted. It sounded like foxes in a chicken coop. At one flank of the dwarf troop, a shutter opened momentarily and something flew out, bouncing harmlessly off the armor of Sand Sakor. Sand looked down at the fallen object, then looked up at his chieftain. “It’s a potato,” he said in disbelief. “Somebody threw a potato at me.”

Gem Bluesleeve strolled forward to ask, “Would you like for us to haul those people out where we can see them?”

“Go away!” a muffled human voice called from within one of the huts. “Go away! There’s nothing here for you!”

And another voice, even more muffled, said, “Hoodlums! Can’t they just leave us alone?”

And another, “Wait, Mullin! I don’t think these are the same hoodlums. Look how short they are. Do you think those might be dwarves?”

“Dwarves don’t ride horses, idiot!” the first voice chided.

“Are those really horses? How’d they get so big?”

The sound of chickens in panic came again, then stopped. Willen shook his head. “We mean no harm!” he called. “We’re just passing through. We’re looking for the home of Lord Charon.”

“You see?” a voice insisted. “They’re the same ones. The hoodlums looking for Lord Charon.”

“They can’t be the same ones. Those were bigger and their horses were shorter, and besides, those already know where Lord Charon is.”

“Then these are more of the same.” The voice rose again. “Go away and leave us alone!”

“Rust!” Willen growled. “All right! We’ll go away! Just tell us if that citadel ahead is Lord Charon’s keep!”

“Of course it is,” a querulous voice snapped. “What else would it be?”

“Thank you,” Willen Ironmaul said. He flicked his reins and headed out of the village.

Behind him, the hidden voices chattered, “I tell you, Mullin, those are dwarves!” “Nonsense! Why would dwarves come here? And what would dwarves want with Lord Charon?” “Well, I think it’s more of those same hoodlums from Xak Tsaroth.” “There aren’t any dwarves in Xak Tsaroth, it’s a human city.” “Then maybe the hoodlums are getting shorter there.”

“What do you suppose that was all about?” Sand Sakor wondered.

“I can probably tell you what it was about, if you want to know,” a high voice said from below.

Willen glanced down and frowned. “You!”

“Of course I’m me,” Castomel Springheel assured him. “I’ve been me most of my life, except maybe the time when that old mage turned me into a goat for a day and a half. I wasn’t quite myself then.”

The kender was trotting along happily, almost under the hooves of Willen’s great horse, Shag, and was carrying a brace of chickens. “If you’re looking for Lord Charon,” he said, “that’s his stronghold up there on that hill. But then, if you’re looking for the Tariff Overlord’s people, that’s where they are, too. Except they’re outside. Lord Charon doesn’t invite them in.” The kender’s brow lowered in disapproval. “They steal anything they can get their hands on.”

“Like someone else I’ve met,” Willen snorted.

Cas glanced up at him. “Who?”

“Never mind. Where did you get those chickens?”

“What chickens? Oh, these?” the kender glanced at the birds dangling from his hands as though surprised to find them there. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just thinking about supper, and sure enough, there were some chickens just waiting around. I don’t suppose they belonged to anybody. If they did, they didn’t say so. How about letting me have a ride on your horse?”

“Absolutely not!” Willen rasped. “I prefer you down there with your hands full of chickens.”

“That’s all right,” the kender said happily, glancing around. Behind and flanking the mounted Hylar, Gem Bluesleeve’s foot troop had been keeping pace. Now, though, at a hand signal from Willen, all of the Daewar had veered aside and were streaming off at an angle to the left, disappearing by threes and sixes into a ravine that wandered between fields. “Where are they going?” When no answer came the kender shrugged. “Well, if those people can run like that, with all that armor on, then I guess I can’t complain.”

The hillside below the citadel looked like a travelers’ camp. There were cook-fires, and tents, and a makeshift corral with a dozen or more horses in it. At a glance, it seemed there were several hundred human males camped there, and that they had been there for a while. On the parapets above, where pennants flew, liveried guardsmen patrolled.

“Those are Lord Charon’s household troops,” Cas Springheel chatted, pointing a chicken-laden hand toward the heights of the citadel. “Lord Charon isn’t very happy about the Tariff Overlord in Xak Tsaroth sending all these people out here to collect taxes, so he doesn’t let them in. But at the same time he doesn’t want to drive them away because the Tariff Overlord of Xak Tsaroth is recognized as a legitimate civil authority in Ergoth, though Lord Charon personally considers him a buffoon.”

“So what are they doing?” Willen asked.

“Nothing,” the kender said, trotting along beside the large horse. “It’s kind of a standoff.”

“Humans,” Willen muttered, shaking his head.

Trumpets sounded then, atop the citadel, and Willen knew that they had been noticed.

A hundred yards from the citadel, the mounted column of dwarves halted. The guards atop the tower had doubled in number, their heads and shoulders visible against the sky, but no weapons were being brandished. They seemed to be just watching. The high gates of the keep remained closed. But in front of them, on the hillside, were nearly a dozen mounted humans in heavy armor, and a broad, double rank of armed footmen – hundreds of them – with pikes and longaxes. As the dwarves halted, a rider stepped his mount forward from the center and gazed at them. Without turning, he bellowed, “By the gods, I think these are dwarves!”

“I assure you, sir, that we are dwarves. We are here to call on Lord Charon, and since you are not him, I advise you to stand aside.”

“Stand aside?” The man seemed astonished. “Stand aside? Do you know who I am, dwarf?”

“No,” Willen admitted. “Who are you?”

“I,” the man drew himself up in his saddle, almost parting the layers of armor at his midsection, “am none other than Shamad Turnstreet, deputy to the Overlord of Tariffs of the city of Xak Tsaroth. And you dwarves,” he pointed an accusing finger, “are liable both for the general tariff decreed for the rural provinces and for special penalties as border-crossers and illegal aliens. If you don’t have the money, I am authorized to seize your horses, arms, and valuables.”

“About the time the moons rust over, you will,” Willen said evenly. “I am Willen Ironmaul, Chieftain of Thane Hylar of Thorbardin and Kal-Thax, and I am here to see Lord Charon on official business for the Council of Thanes. Now stand aside.”

“Impudence,” Shamad Turnstreet spat. “I do not take impudence from dwarves.” He raised an imperious hand. “Seize these creatures!”

The other mounted humans rode up beside him, loosing shields and lances, and the line of footmen spread for a charge.

“You are making a mistake, Shamad Turnstreet,” Willen called. “Consider yourself warned.”

“Insolence!” the human roared. He lowered his face plate. “Forward!” he ordered.

The footmen closed ranks and charged. Just behind and looming above them, armed riders lowered their lances, raised their shields, and charged, closing on the line of footmen who spread to let them through.

“If that’s how you want it,” Willen muttered. He signaled, and his troop spread into spearpoint formation. “Hammers and shields,” he called, and swept his arm forward.

With a resounding crash and din, the two lines met. Lances and pikes glanced off dwarven shields as the spear formation of dwarves swept through, and as each point was deflected a heavy hammer descended casually – almost delicately – upon the headgear of its wielder. In seconds, the entire dwarf troop was through the line of humans, wheeling about in precise coordination to survey the field behind them. Everywhere were sprawled, tumbled men rolling around in confusion, holding their heads in their hands, getting to their knees to search for their dropped weapons. In the distance, eleven riderless horses pounded away toward the outlying fields. Delighted laughter floated down from the high ramparts of the citadel on the hill.

“I told you people to stand aside!” Willen Ironmaul shouted. “Now let well enough alone!”

But up on the hillside above, an outraged voice shouted, “A fluke! It was a trick! Regroup and attack!”

Shamad Turnstreet had directed the assault but had not taken part in it. Now he sat his saddle on the slope above, waving his arms in rage. “Attack!” he called. “Attack!”

Reluctantly, his troops got to their feet, picked up fallen weapons, and reassembled themselves, this time in a spearpoint formation as the dwarves had done before. All the humans except their leader were on foot now, but the charge they leveled at the dwarven ranks bristled with deadly points and blades.

Willen’s troop touched reins, and the tall Calnar horses spread and reformed, an outward-curving line like open arms waiting to greet the assault. And abruptly, there were no riders in any of the saddles. Each Hylar clung now alongside his mount’s shoulder, shield placed to protect both horse and rider.

Gawking in confusion, the human rush slowed for a moment, then regained its force. Battle cries rang out, drowning the voice of Shamad Turnstreet, who was looking past his troops at what was behind them.

At the moment the human line hit the dwarven defense, Gem Bluesleeve’s Golden Hammer hit the human line from the rear, crushing the charge against the Hylar line as a pestle crushes orestone in a dwarven miner’s mortar.

Again, no dwarf was touched by a blade, and again every human in the attack was rapped sharply by dwarven hammers. This time, the blows were less delicate. Some who fell would not get up again without assistance.

The dwarves backed away disdainfully. “Pick up your wounded and get out of our way!” Willen ordered the humans. “We have business here, but it isn’t with the likes of you!”

It was all too much for the blustering Shamad Turnstreet. With a cry, the Deputy Overlord lowered his lance, spurred his mount, and thundered down the hillside, directly at the exposed back of Willen Ironmaul.

Shag’s ears turned at the sound, and the Calnar horse sidestepped as the human’s lance flicked past the dwarf. In an instant, Willen dropped his shield and hammer, braced his booted feet against the saddle’s foretree, and leaned out, his strong hands closing on the armored shoulders of the human as he hurtled past. With a heave, the dwarf wrenched the human loose from his saddle, dropped him clattering to the ground, and fell atop him. Willen rolled the man over on his belly, squatted atop him, and methodically removed his weapons, his helmet, his back-plate, his gauntlets, and his armor skirt.

Gathering up all these implements, Willen stepped away and said, “Tariffmaster, go back to the city where you belong. For the inconvenience you have caused to representatives of the Council of Thanes of Thorbardin and Kal-Thax, I hereby levy your horse and your armor as taxes. Now get away from here before I decide to collect further tariffs.”

Roars of laughter rang down from the ramparts of the citadel. It sounded – and looked – as though the entire household were up there now, taking in the show.

When the tax collector from Xak Tsaroth had gone, half-naked and followed by a stumbling, wretched band of associates, the gates of Citadel Charon opened and knights rode out, parting to make way for the gray knight Willen had met before – Lord Charon himself. The human rode to within a few yards of Willen and stopped. “Greetings, Sir Dwarf,” he said. “That was a lively entertainment, though you have thoroughly humiliated an official of the Ergothian realm.”

“Official?” Willen gazed at the man. “That was only a hoodlum. Lord Knight, I am here as a representative of —”

“I know.” Charon nodded. “I heard. And what is the business you wish to discuss?”

“A road,” Willen said. “A common road, a joint venture by Ergoth and Kal-Thax. A road northward, through the pass at Tharkas to the lands beyond. A road to help you get rid of the refugees who plague you and to keep them from spreading into Kal-Thax.”

“A road,” Charon said. “Well, it is a thing we can talk about … along with the price of dwarven tools and whether those big horses of yours might interbreed with plains stock. But before we sit to table, Sir Dwarf, I have a question.”

“Sir?”

“You humiliated those buffoons from Xak Tsaroth. Oh, I don’t mind, personally. Turnstreet plays at chivalry, but he is, as you say, nothing more than a hoodlum. But tell me, Sir Dwarf, had that been me who attacked you … would you have played such games with me?”

“No, sir,” Willen said seriously. “I would never play games with you, Lord Knight. It would be far too dangerous. Had you attacked me, I would have killed you as promptly as I could.”

Not far away, Castomel Springheel was foraging happily through the remains of the hillside camp. He had somehow come into possession of Shamad Turnstreet’s hammered breastplate and had thought of a fine use for it. If he could find some fat or a little lard, the iron shell would be just the thing for frying his chickens.

Chapter 27

THARKAS PASS

From the flanks of Sky’s End, Cale Greeneye and his company wound north and west through steep-walled canyons and vast valleys hidden within the high Kharolis, where whole villages of Einar turned out to gape at this strange band of explorers led by dozens of dwarves mounted upon huge horses. Most of the people of these mountains had never seen horses before, and none had seen horses like the Calnar breed.

Those who traveled with them were just as remarkable. The Hylar were strange to the Einar and seemed wise and worldly. But others were obviously Daewar by their golden beards and bright clothing, and there were even a few Theiwar in the group – young adventurers who had joined the Neidar scouts as much out of boredom as anything else.

For many of the remote Einar, it was a strange idea – that people of various tribes and cultures could blend as a group and join in a common cause. Many also were fascinated by the name the adventurers had adopted for themselves. Neidar. Knoll-dwellers, or hill-dwellers. For the pastoral dwarves, oriented as all dwarves to the comforts of home and hearth, it was a rich name – a name that spoke of living preferences. A far better word than Einar, which meant only unaffiliated.

At each encounter, Cale told the Einar of the planned fortress of Thorbardin, located beneath Cloudseeker Mountain, and extended the invitation of the Council of Thanes to those who cared to join in the great venture – to affiliate themselves with whichever undermountain tribe appealed to them and become part of Thorbardin. He also told them that, for those who chose to stay on the land, rather than under it, their herds and crops would bring good prices in trade at Thorbardin, where such basics as food and fibers were much needed.

At each morning’s departure, Cale looked back at the people with whom they had stayed the night, wondering what his passing through would bring about. Many, he was sure, would go to see for themselves what was going on under Cloudseeker – out of curiosity, if nothing else. Some would choose to stay, to join the Daewar, or the Theiwar, or Daergar, to be a part of the great undertaking that was Thorbardin.

A task of monumental proportion, the chance to be part of something grand … the opportunity to craft and to build, to work with stone, metals, and timbers, to use tools to one’s content – all of these would be great temptations to any dwarf, and Cale understood that. He wondered how many thousands – or tens of thousands – of new residents Thorbardin would have by the time he and his company returned, just from what they had told people as they journeyed through the land of Kal-Thax.

He almost wished he could be in the subterranean caverns to see the reaction of those Einar who came to look. They would be astonished at least. They would gape and gawk in wonder as new ideas smote them from every side. Just as Glow Coppertoe, who had been Daewar all his life, was astonished in the early days of the exploration when Cale had sat his mount at the rim of the Grand Gorge and said casually, “This will need to have a bridge built across it.”

To the Daewar, the idea of building a bridge across such a chasm was startling. But then, historically the Daewar were delvers, not builders. And they had never seen Thoradin.

Willen Ironmaul was off to the east, establishing a diplomatic relationship with the humans there with the idea of building a road northward. It was the mission of Cale Greeneye and his Neidar to determine a route for the road. If Willen succeeded, humans would soon be at work, grading and crowning a way from the plains of southeastern Ergoth to the breaks where the heights of Kal-Thax began. But they would go no farther than the Gorge. Humans would not be able to span such a canyon, to build such a bridge. But dwarves could, if they knew how. And the Hylar, who had been Calnar, knew how.

Cale mapped a route under the very slopes of Sky’s End and up across the first pass into the heart of the mountains, heading northwest. In the distance, Daewar lore said, was a pass at a place the Daewar called Tharkas. Some of the Einar they met verified that. Some had actually seen it – a deep cleft between almost unscalable heights. And beyond were other lands – human or elf, or both, none were quite sure – where refugees from the eastern wars might settle in and make new homes … and from where, in the words of Olim Goldbuckle, trade might flow once they got settled.

No human would ever settle in Kal-Thax. The Covenant of Thanes made that clear. But then, why would humans want to settle in the dwarven high country if they could find places suited to humans just beyond?

To Cale, as to all of the Council of Thanes, it seemed the perfect solution to the problem of refugees piling up on Kal-Thax’s eastern border. Simply build a road across Kal-Thax and let them use it. No one really cared if foreigners traveled through Kal-Thax, as long as they minded their manners, left the dwarves alone, and didn’t pause too long in the mountains.

So, let them cross, and let them settle the lands beyond. Who would mind that?

On the ninth day out from the last Einar settlement, wending their way among peaks and crags that became higher, rougher, and more forbidding with each mile northward, the explorers came out on a high, grassy shelf and caught their first glimpse of Tharkas Pass. Spring had laid its first touch on these climes, and a soft haze lay in the hollows beneath snow-capped peaks that receded into blue distance. But beyond the farthest visible slopes rose a mammoth, saw-toothed ridge of mountains, standing above the marching peaks the way the eastern Kharolis peaks stood above their foothills.

To the mountain-dwelling dwarves, an unreachable summit was almost unthinkable. Like the Hylar, the children of the tribes of Kal-Thax learned to climb as soon as they learned to walk. But now the explorers paused in awe, staring at the mighty wall that was the north border of Kal-Thax. It seemed to run from horizon to vertiginous horizon, losing itself in the maze of steep peaks that flanked it. Only at one point was it broken – by a deep, slanted rift as though a huge axe had cut away a wedge of it.

“Tharkas Pass.” Cale pointed and turned abruptly at the melodious voice that responded from the slope above him.

“That’s what dwarves call it,” the voice said. “We have another name for it, but not many dwarves can pronounce it – or want to.”

Cale and those with him squinted, their eyes roving the forested slope, and then there was movement there, and Cale’s eyes brightened as he raised a hand in salute. “Eloeth!” he called. “We meet again!”

The dwarf felt he would never get used to the way these elves could appear and disappear, camouflaging themselves and blending into their surroundings. Where moments ago there had seemed to be no one, now the wooded slope above the shelf was alive with slim, graceful creatures clad in leathers and weaves that were the colors of the wild lands.

Two of them he recognized from an earlier meeting – the slant-eyed Eloeth and, not far behind her, the somber, smoke-haired male called Demoth. Both carried bows, but while Eloeth’s was slung at her shoulder, Demoth’s was at hand. He held it casually, but the notched arrow was ready to draw and release.

“Cale Greeneye,” Eloeth said, returning his wave. “Your company has grown since last we met. How fare the Hylar? I have heard you found your Everbardin.”

“You have heard?”

“We hear many things,” she said, perching on a broken tree just yards away. “For instance, we hear that the drumbeater dwarves have allied with the tribes of Kal-Thax and now are seeking an alliance with the humans of eastern Ergoth.”

“Not so much an alliance.” Cale frowned. “More like a joint project. We might build a road.”

“Through Tharkas Pass?”

Cale gazed at the wall of peaks in the distance. “Where else? A road that dead-ended at those mountains would do no good.”

“And do you know what lies beyond Tharkas?”

“Some other land.” He shrugged. “Someplace where humans might go, so they won’t need to bother us.”

Eloeth shook her head slightly. Cale couldn’t tell whether the expression on her face was a smile or a grimace. “Other lands, indeed,” she said. “That ‘other land’ is the home of my people. It has been, ever since some of us began to drift away from Silvanesti. Do you think that we want those you will not allow in Kal-Thax? The western forests are not a dumping ground for dwarves’ spare humans, you know.”

Cale stared at her, at a loss for words. It had never crossed his mind – or anyone else’s, apparently – that there might be people beyond Kal-Thax just as reluctant to absorb hordes of refugees as the dwarves were.

“Well?” Eloeth prompted.

“Well … we have come this far to see Tharkas Pass. I would like to see it.”

“Don’t you think you have come far enough beyond your own lands?” Demoth challenged, striding down the slope to stand beside Eloeth. Behind them other elves – hundreds of them, it seemed, changed positions subtly, backing the challenge.

“This is our land!” Mica Rockreave bristled, at Cale’s flank. “We have joined in the Covenant of Thanes, and you people are the trespassers here, not us. Kal-Thax is ours, and Kal-Thax goes all the way to Tharkas Pass.”

“Does it?” Eloeth smiled knowingly. “Who says so?”

“Olim Goldbuckle said so,” Cale put in, trying to wave down the short-tempered Mica Rockreave. “The Daewar have made a map of Kal-Thax. The boundaries are clear.”

“Dwarven maps are like dwarven minds,” Demoth purred. “They claim everything and clarify nothing. Realms are not bound by lines on maps, dwarf. Realms extend to the reach of those who control them and no farther.”

“Dwarves control the lands from the south plains to Tharkas Pass,” Cale explained. “At least, that’s how it is supposed to be.”

“Dwarves are —” Demoth started, then subsided as Eloeth raised an elegant hand. Cale turned to scowl at Mica Rockreave and put a finger to his lips. The last thing the young Neidar wanted to do, on a scouting mission, was to start a war with the elves.

“Demoth is right,” Eloeth said softly. “Not in a hundred years or more has their been a dwarven patrol exercising presence this far north. You are eighty miles beyond the natural limit of Kal-Thax where people live and use the land. This is all wilderness out here, and just beyond that pass lies the enchanted forest we call home.”

“And beyond that?”

“Beyond?” She shrugged. “All sorts of places. Human realms, mostly. Western Ergoth is nearest and largest. Why?”

“Just curious,” Cale assured her. “But I would still like to see that pass. Do you object?”

“I suppose we can show it to you,” Eloeth said, standing. “It won’t hurt for you to see it.”

“Thank you,” Cale Greeneye bowed slightly in his tall saddle, then turned another frown on Mica Rockreave and those around him. “Just be still and let me handle this!” he whispered.

“But these elves are …”

“These elves are going to show us Tharkas Pass. Come on. Let’s go.”

*

Cale was astonished at how quickly they covered the miles up to the great pass. Following the hidden ways and traveled trails of the elves, most of which he would never have known were there except for the sight of throngs of silent-footed elves trotting along ahead of him, they seemed to bypass all of the rough places and travel only the best paths. The sun of Krynn was still in the sky when the party climbed the last rise and entered a huge, magnificently walled cleft in the mountain ridge. For a mile they traveled between wide-set stone steeps which climbed into the high mists, then the path angled downward slightly and – abruptly – the walls opened out.

The view was breathtaking. The path curved downward, following natural slopes – downward and away to lose itself in distance. And beyond, spreading to the limits of vision, was a tremendous, forested plateau, a solid carpet of new-greening trees that rolled away toward the horizon. From the mouth of the pass the forests of the elves seemed to begin several thousand feet away and to go on from there forever.

“Beautiful,” Cale breathed, climbing down from Piquin’s high back to stand beside Eloeth. “That’s where you live, huh?”

“That is the place we call home.” She nodded. “From where the forest begins, as far as you can see.”

“From where the forest begins?” Cale pointed. “Down there?”

“That’s right.”

Cale smiled delightedly, then turned, facing his own companions, and raised sturdy arms. “On behalf of the Council of Thanes and the people of Kal-Thax,” he roared, “I hereby claim all the lands we have traveled, to and including this place where we stand, as part of Kal-Thax. Kal-Thax extends to this point!” He unslung his hammer, drew an iron spike from his belt and knelt. With one resounding blow he drove the spike into the stone of Tharkas Pass.

Demoth was beside him then, spinning to face him, his bow raised threateningly. “Stop that!” the elf demanded. “What are you doing?”

Cale stood and gazed at the elf levelly. “I have done what you yourself suggested. I have just clarified what dwarven maps – and dwarven minds – claim. Everything behind us is Kal-Thax, by right of my claim and my stake.”

Demoth stared, still holding his bow tensed. “You can’t do that,” he said.

“I just did,” the Neidar pointed out. “And if you have any doubt of the reach of those who claim the realm, then please notice that we have reached here with your blessing. And if you raise that bow, elf, I swear I will feed you my hammer a pound at a time.”

“Demoth!” Eloeth was there, pushing down the male elf’s hands and his bow. “Let it alone! It’s only a claim, and means nothing unless it is ratified and enforced.” She turned to Cale. “Clever,” she said. “You obtained my warrant that this place is beyond our homeland, so you have taken nothing that we have a right to defend. You are full of surprises, Cale Greeneye of the Hylar.”

“Of Thorbardin and Kal-Thax,” he corrected, “though I – and my friends – are more Neidar than Holgar.”

“What?”

“It is a manner of speech. It means we prefer the outsides of slopes to the insides of them. But I have one more surprise for you, if you will permit. On that pack horse are two kegs of good ale, and we have the haunches of a mountain bison. If you and your company will share a fire with us this night, I’d like to hear how the wars go in the east.”

“But what of this claim business?”

“Oh, that’s all done. I’ve made the claim on legitimate grounds. I suppose it’s up to my leaders, and yours, to get together sometime and decide what to do about it.” He turned again, gazing off across the distant forest. “Western Ergoth lies beyond, you say? Where?”

She pointed northward. “There, and westward beyond the forest.”

“The new road might have to be longer than we anticipated,” Cale said. “But it could serve elven purposes, too, you know.”

Chapter 28

FATHER OF KINGS

Willen Ironmaul felt a touch of elation as he and his personal escort – named the Ten in honor of those who had served Colin Stonetooth – emerged from the first warren into the great cavern of Thorbardin. His mission to the lands of eastern Ergoth had been a success. He knew Tera would be pleased. His immediate desire was to go straight to the new Hylar delvings and see her, but a reception committee was waiting for him at the cable-way.

“The drums told us you had returned.” Olim Goldbuckle grinned. “Business first, Sir Chieftain. How went your visit to the human lands?”

“Very well, I believe,” Willen said. “Not only will they build a roadway to the mountains, following Cale’s route, but the knights have agreed to patrol it at their end to stop the migrations toward Cloudseeker. Lord Charon gave me his oath and his hand on it.”

“Marvelous!” The Daewar slapped the big dwarf on his armored back and started him along the shoreline path to Daebardin. “I have called for the Council to assemble,” he said. “Now, how about trade? Did you discuss trade with the Ergothians?”

“They will trade grain, dyes, and fibers for tools and glass.” Willen nodded. “I agreed to no more than that, but if it goes well we can expand upon the commodities. Oh, and Lord Charon is prepared to discuss more extensive trade with the Overlords in Xak Tsaroth. He feels it will give his people a nice edge there, if their clerks can act as agents for things like woolen goods, embossed plating, leathers, and ironware. Oh, and gemcraft. His exact words were, Those pestilent city-dwellers love anything that sparkles, and if they can’t steal it, then they’ll buy it.’”

“Did you discuss weapons?”

“They know we can make better weapons than they can, but I didn’t discuss trading in weapons. I felt that should be a Council decision.”

The Daewar prince glanced at Willen shrewdly. “A wise notion,” he said. “We should go slowly in providing humans with fine weapons. But that may come later. The more secure we become in Kal-Thax, with Thorbardin as our fortress, the less we shall need to worry about our goods being turned against us.”

Through the outer Theiwar digs they walked, and Willen was taken by the extent of the delving that had been done just in the time of his journey. Many of the delvers working there, he noticed, were Daewar.

“We’re doing some bartering of skills,” Olim noted. “We do what we’re best at, they do what they’re best at, and we all come out ahead.”

Everywhere, as far as could be seen around the lakeshore, the great cavern bustled with activity. By the hundreds and by the thousands, the people of Thorbardin were working to build cities and homes for all of the emerged thanes.

Past the Theiwar digs, the little procession entered a wide tunnel and emerged into Klar territory. Here the delves were different – lower and wider, with stout barricades for walls. The Klar had their own ideas of architecture, and their own ways of doing things, but here again, Willen noticed a mix of races. Much of the delving was being done by Daewar, much of the hauling by Theiwar and quite a few Hylar were involved in the masonry of the heavy walls. The place was being built for Klar, but there weren’t many Klar to be seen.

“More barter?” he asked.

“Of course,” Olim chuckled. “The Klar don’t care for construction, so they’re working the warrens while this goes on. They do have a way with worms.”

Across a waterway, where cable-ferries plied, they entered a brighter territory. Hylar designers were supervising the installation of a mirrored sun gallery for the Daewar beneath one of the mountain’s quartz shafts.

“The other chiefs will meet us in my assembly hall,” Olim Goldbuckle said. “But I think there is time for a bit of ale first.”

Willen started to nod, then turned abruptly, looking out across the waters of the subterranean sea. Out there, where the huge mass of the “living stone” stalactite stood above the water, drums were speaking. He listened for a moment, then handed his packs to the nearest of the Ten and grabbed Olim’s arm. “Hang the council meeting!” he said. “I have to go home! Where are your docks?”

With the chieftain of the Hylar in charge, and the prince of the Daewar in tow, the two sprinted away, leaving their stunned escorts to stare after them.

“What was that all about?” a Daewar guard stammered.

“The drums!” A Hylar grinned. “Our chief is about to be a father.”

Mistral Thrax had heard the drums, too. Now, as he hobbled from his temporary cubicle in Daebardin down to the shore of the Urkhan Sea, the echoing clamors of the great cavern seemed to take on the sound of them, and he hopped faster, flailing his crutch as he ran. The palms of his hands, which had once touched magic, tingled and itched, and he felt the lore of past and future gathering around him.

Tera Sham’s child was due, and the drums called, and Mistral Thrax wanted to be there. A child was borning, and the child was of the seed of Colin Stonetooth.

At the pier below Daebardin’s main way, Mistral Thrax hobbled across to where a cable-boat was tied. The boatman – like most boatmen working the new cable-ways from the shores out to the lower end of the great stalactite that was being delved for the Hylar – was a sullen-looking Theiwar. The Theiwar had proven adept at handling cables and winches, and many – unlike most dwarves of other clans – could swim. Thus they often bartered service in the cable-ways, and particularly the waterways. Their skills they bartered for the skills of Daewar to delve living spaces for them, of Hylar to construct walls and doors, and for materials from the Daergar mines and forges.

It was a system that had evolved in recent times, this trading of skills among the clans, and most of the dwarves felt it worked well enough, except for the resultant necessity to deal with people for whom centuries of enmity were not easily forgotten. Daewar delvers riding the boats or cable-carts tended to ignore the Theiwar who operated them, as though they were not there. The Theiwar, in their turn, did all they could to make their Daewar passengers uncomfortable.

As for the Daergar, delivering loads of ore to the furnaces and foundries, they simply ignored everybody unless someone happened to bump them or get in their way. Hardly a day went by in Thorbardin without some major dispute that in many cases had to be resolved by the Council of Thanes. Already, plans were being drawn for a Hall of Justice, because of the pugnacious attitudes of the people who had come to live – more or less together – in Thorbardin. And there were more people each day, as Einar from outside came to join the undermountain clans.

At pierside, Mistral Thrax poised himself on his crutch, then hopped down into the big cable-boat, causing waters to lap along its sides and drawing a frown from the Theiwar at the winch.

“What do you want?” the boatman snapped.

“What do you think I want?” Mistral growled back, seating himself in the stern. “This is a boat, and I’m a passenger. I want to go to the stalactite.”

“Well, that’s good,” the Theiwar said, “since that’s the only place this boat goes. Hardly worth the effort, though, just for one old gimper. Gonna work, might as well have a load.” He glared at the old Hylar, and lounged pointedly against his cable housing.

“I didn’t ask your opinions on the subject of efficiency!” Mistral glared back. “Get that winch going!”

“What will you give me to take you across?” the Theiwar asked.

“It’s what I’ll give you if you don’t that should concern you!” Mistral raised his crutch like a cudgel.

The Theiwar sighed, then cast off his moorings and grasped his winch handles. “At least you’re no gold-molding Daewar,” he muttered. “I hate taking orders from Daewar.”

Mistral lowered his crutch as the boat began to move. “If you don’t like this job, why do it?”

“It beats digging rock,” the boatman allowed. “There’s a team of delvers slaking out a dig for me and my family in Theibardin. So I’m over here hauling this scow.” A trumpet sounded, and he looked up. “Oh, now that’s more like it,” he said, reversing the winch. Immediately, the boat stopped and started going backward, back toward the Daebardin pier.

Mistral turned. There were people at the pier, waving frantically. Among them were Willen Ironmaul and Olim Goldbuckle, a brace of panting guardsmen, and a pair of aging Hylar women carrying bundles of cloths. There were also several Daewar women, and a Theiwar woman carrying copper pots.

As the boat approached the landing, the crowd pushed forward. “Hurry up, Chard!” the Theiwar woman called to the boatman. “We are wanted over there!”

Even before the boat had nestled against the dock, people were piling aboard, pushing and shoving for space. The last to board were the chieftain of the Hylar and the prince of the Daewar. “Hurry, boatman!” Willen snapped. “It’s time!”

The Theiwar gazed at him impudently. “And what time is that?”

With a surge and two strides, Willen was in the bow, pushing the Theiwar out of the way. The big Hylar took the winch-handles in hands like iron sledges, and the boat plowed water as it headed out across Urkhan’s Sea.

“You and your attitudes!” the Theiwar women snapped at the boatman. She brandished her copper pots at him. “Don’t you know what these mean?”

He stared at her stupidly, then his eyes widened. “Ah?” he said. “Ah! That time!” Staggering forward, he joined the Hylar chieftain at the winches, and the boat fairly raced for the tip of the stalactite in the middle of the lake.

Mistral Thrax frowned, shoving for space between two of the females. The women always know, he thought, the women with their cloths and their serious expressions, the copper pots for heating water – probably they knew even before the drums sounded from the Hylar quarters. It was time for a child to be born. His palms tingled and itched, and he clung to a wale to keep from being pushed overboard as the women shifted their positions in the boat impatiently. “Hurry!” one of them demanded. “Can’t you people pull faster?”

Muttering an oath, Mistral Thrax tapped his crutch against the timbered deck, then stared at it, blinking. For an instant, the crutch had seemed to glow. And in that instant it had seemed not like a crutch, but more like a fishing spear – a spear with twin tines. Mistral looked up. Apparently, no one else had noticed anything. He noticed that other boats were coming from other piers around the big lake, all pulling toward the center.

Approaching the giant stalactite was like approaching an upside-down mountain suspended from the sky. It was a huge, glistening mass of stone, rounded at the bottom where it almost touched the little island beneath that was its twin stalagmite, rising from the water. The distance between the stone surfaces was less than ten feet, and they were coupled now by a masonry shaft where the Hylar had installed a lift-belt, of the kind Handil the Drum had perfected in Thorin. The lift rose upward, into the main shaft where delving had begun and where the first quarters of the Hylar had been installed.

The boat creaked and nestled into a stone quay made of rubble from the delving above. Guards hurried forward from the lift to secure the lines, then stepped back as Willen Ironmaul stepped ashore and turned to lend stout hands to the others debarking. “How is my wife?” Willen asked.

“Very well, Sire,” a portal guard assured him. “But those with her say that her time is at hand. The child comes soon.”

Willen headed for the lift, but the women crowded ahead of him. “You wait your turn,” one of them snapped. “She needs us now more than she needs you. Just stay out of the way.”

“Here!” the Theiwar woman thrust her copper kettles at the chieftain of the Hylar. “Make yourself useful. Bring water.”

He handed the kettles to a guard. “You heard her,” he said. “Bring water.” As the lift stages disappeared up the shaft, carrying the women, Willen swung aboard the next stage and Mistral Thrax scrambled on beside him, clinging to Willen’s breastplate to keep from falling. Behind them, Olim and others crowded toward the next stage.

Upward through its shaft the lift-belt rumbled, and they stepped off onto fresh, hewn stone where a delve had been completed and shorings and partitions put into place. With Hylar craftsmen following them, Daewar delvers had dug an open area ten feet high and expanding a hundred feet in all directions from the central shafts. The Hylar had partitioned the space into various cubicles and enclosures, their pillars and masonry walls serving both as partitions and as braces to shore up the ceiling. The great delve, in the living stone of the stalactite, was only just begun, but already there was space enough for twenty Hylar families.

In a cubicle floored by fine carpets and hung with bright Daewar tapestries, Tera Sharn lay in her bed, radiant and determined. Dwarven women were gathered around her, and the new arrivals joined them. When Willen pushed through the crowd, Tera’s eyes brightened. “Willen!” she cried. “You’ve come back! How did it go with the Ergothians?”

“There will be a road,” he assured her, leaning over to plant a kiss on her lips. “And you?”

“Splendid,” she said. “Everything is well, my love. Our child is —”

“Mercy!” a Daewar woman snapped, tugging on Willen’s belt. “Back off, you oaf! Give her room to breathe.” Others joined her, and Willen allowed himself to be hauled away. Beyond the crowd he turned and bumped into another dwarf. It was Olim Goldbuckle.

Other boats had landed, and suddenly the little cubicle was packed with people. Slide Tolec was there, and Bole Trune leaning on his cudgel and looking thoroughly out of place, and others, everywhere.

“We heard,” the Theiwar said, “so we came. The birth of a child is a —”

“I’ll tell the lot of you what it is not!” a Hylar woman hissed, glaring at all the males packed into the room. “It is not a public spectacle! Out! All of you, out!”

Sheepishly, most of the leading citizens of Thorbardin were herded from the room by irate females. One, though, remained. Mistral Thrax refused to budge. He clung to his crutch and to a tapestry, shaking his head. “I won’t leave,” he insisted. “I am needed here.”

“Then stay out of the way,” someone said, and turned away to close the doors, shutting out all the other males. For a time the crowded cubicle was alive with bustling, chattering women doing mysterious things, then a silence fell which was broken by a slap and an angry wail. “A boy!” someone said. “A strong, healthy boy!”

The wail had carried through the closed doors, and now they flew open and people thronged in again, deep male voices laughing and chattering, aahing and oohing, hard hands slapping Willen on his armored back as he tried to see past the mob of women. In the bed, a tired and radiant Tera Sharn held her infant close to her and smiled her pleasure.

Mistral Thrax was not watching, though. His hands ached and his heart was pounding, and his gaze was fixed on the open doorway. There was something there – barely visible – something like a whiff of smoke that grew and roiled and formed itself into the tenuous shape of a tall, human man. In dark hollows a pair of spectral eyes opened, and Mistral pushed forward to face the apparition. “No!” he shouted. “No! I forbid you!”

The “eyes” began to glow, a murky red that grew brighter and brighter.

“I killed you once,” Mistral Thrax rasped. “I’ll do it again!”

The smoke flowed but held its shape, and now all eyes in the room were on it, people backing away in fright. A voice like a whisper of smoke said, “The child. The seed. In morit deis Calnaris,” it whispered. “Refeist ot atium —”

Roaring a challenge, Willen Ironmaul threw himself at the vision … and rebounded as though he had run into a wall. The whispering voice hesitated only an instant, then repeated, “Refeist ot atium —”

Raising his crutch, Mistral Thrax flung it at the smoke. It seemed to strike an invisible shield, but it clung there and began to glow. It turned red, then brighter red, and its shape changed. The crutch became a spear – a twin-tined fishing spear in the hand of a tattered, ancient dwarf who seemed only partly visible.

“— ot atium,” the smoke whispered. “Dactas ot destis!”

Fires flew from the glowing “eyes,” fires aimed directly at the infant in Tera Sharn’s arms. But they did not get there. Like a magnet drawing iron, the spear in Kitlin Fish-taker’s hand drew the fires. They raged into its point, along its shaft, and into the spectral dwarf who flamed as bright as sunlight. He flamed, absorbing the curse, then thrust the spear forward into the heart of the smoke, and the flames flowed back from him into the specter. For long seconds the two stood motionless, sharing forces that were beyond imagining. Then the flaming shape of Kitlin Fishtaker raised its free arm over its head and opened its hand. In its palm lay a medallion – a fourteen-point star melded from seven metals. Above the roar of fire-forces, the dwarf-apparition’s voice said, “The child’s name shall be Damon. He shall be known as Father of Kings.”

A moment more the glare raged, then it flared out as though it had never been. The smoke-vision of Grayfen the Magician was gone. The spear was gone. Kitlin Fishtaker was gone, and a stunned silence lay on the packed little room.

There was a tiny thump as something fell to the floor, landing on bright carpet at the foot of Tera’s bed. Willen Ironmaul, just getting to his feet, stooped and picked the thing up, looked at it, and then held it up for others to see. It was that same amulet – the one forged by the thanes to bind the agreement among them, the one whose final weld came from the hammer of Colin Stonetooth.

“Father of Kings,” Willen muttered, shaken. He turned, gazing at his wife and their infant child, then gently laid the amulet on the pillow beside them. “Damon,” he said, touching his son’s pink brow with hard, gentle fingers. “Damon. Father of Kings.”

In a corner, unnoticed, Mistral Thrax held his hands open before him and gazed at their palms. The marks were gone. As though they had never been there, the scars of magic had disappeared. “I’m free,” the old dwarf muttered. “I am clean at last … and free.”

Without anyone noticing him, he turned and hobbled out of the room, using a guardsman’s pike as a crutch. Suddenly he had a real yearning for a mug of cold ale.

Hammer and Axe

(2128 PC)

Prologue

THE DWARVEN LANDS

They went furtively in this land of peaks and valleys, of yawning chasms and soaring heights. From the east they came, traveling sometimes afoot and sometimes, when it was demanded, by arcane means to avoid detection. What they sought was a place that the moons said lay among these mountains: a place where high was low and low was high; where yesterday, today, and tomorrow might form a perfect circle; and where the moons of Krynn, on the seventh midnight of the seventh month of each seventh year, were the corners of a triangle whose exact center was directly overhead.

The place they sought would be suited to the building of a citadel – a Tower of High Sorcery from which to control and direct the magics of a world seeking order within chaos. Seven such places, the movement of the moons said, would be found suitable. The first was known – in the great forests of the ancient dragonlands where now were elves. The other six would be known to those who reached them, by the testing of mirrors and stones.

The three had traveled far to reach this mountain land, intent upon their quest. Few knew of their passing. The skills they had learned from the Scions, the arts of weaving spells to draw and utilize the magics, had served them well. And yet, the search was difficult. The world itself told them where to look, to find the points of perfect balance of forces, but only in general terms. They knew, within a few miles, where the base of the citadel must stand and how it would relate – in many planes, seen and unseen – to other such citadels in other places. High in the western mountains lay a flat plain, bounded by towering peaks and precipitous cliffs – a place where low was high and high was low. But they must find the place, exactly. Only by testing would they know, and they must suffer the effects of their spells many times to be sure.

A hundred times in a dozen days they had repeated their ritual, here on the high meadow above the Sheercliff escarpment, deep in the land that the dwarves who lived there called Kal-Thax. The moons decreed the area, and their calculations had told them that the root-source of powers from which a Tower of High Sorcery might draw substance was here … somewhere. But the plain was miles across in all directions.

That they were interlopers in this land, trespassers without leave or warrant, was of little concern to them. They were first-order wizards, trained and nourished in their arts by the Scions themselves. The others suspected that Megistal might be one of those rare ones chosen for deeper magics, though he gave no clue to this, unless it was in the fact that, while the other two had been appointed by their peers to the present mission, Megistal seemed to have appointed himself.

Still, none of them needed permission to go wherever they chose. No one could stop them. No one could even see them if they wished not to be seen. Many times since entering these mountains they had seen dwarves, or heard signal drums, and several times Megistal had suggested that, in all fairness, they should at least let the dwarves know what they were doing. It was none of the dwarves’ business, but it might avoid conflicts later if the dwarves were to accept now that there would be a Tower of High Sorcery within their realm, whether they wished it or not.

But each time, the other two had disagreed. “It would just cause a fuss,” Sigamon argued. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them, and, besides, we’re doing this for the general good – for their good as much as anyone else’s. Magic must be ordered, for the benefit of all. It is the purpose of the citadels.”

Of course, Tantas sneered at this attitude. “Dwarves don’t matter,” he said. “But we’ll need them later, and the less they know in advance, the better. When the site is found, we’ll need laborers to set the stones. Where better to get slaves than from among these dwarves? Tell them nothing. When we need them, we shall take them.”

So the dwarves knew nothing of the wizards or why they were there. Recently Megistal had the feeling that someone was watching them, but he was certain it was not a dwarf. Whoever it was had not interfered, though Sigamon’s favorite chalice had turned up missing, and Tantas complained that he could not find his blackstone bracelet. So as the days went by the wizards labored, slept, and labored again, drawing upon their own energies to feed the magics of the search.

Megistal was tired now, as he raised bloodstone amulets above his head, one in each hand, and uttered the spell he had repeated a hundred times or more. “Dactis tat sonan!” he breathed, and felt the uncomfortable tingling in his shoulders and fingers as the amulets drew strength from him to do his bidding. Little fires arced around and between the two stones, their deep red color becoming an angry glow, like cold, blood-red fire dancing from one to the other. Megistal drew a deep, shuddering breath and commanded, “Chapak!” Abruptly the flow of light between the stones extended ahead of him, becoming a double shaft of radiance that grew and raced outward, to converge upon a spot on the ground nearly sixty feet away. Instantly, the ground there seemed to come alive, to swarm with busy, scurrying things, but he knew that was only an illusion.

“Mark the point!” Megistal called, concentrating. It took substantial effort to hold the spell in place.

Tantas and Sigamon hurried forward, Sigamon lifting his muddy white robe above his knees to sprint on long, ungainly legs, while the hunchbacked Tantas scuttled in that peculiar gait of his, clutching his black floppy hat to keep it from falling off. While Megistal stood, intent and motionless, holding the sources of the light in place, the two other wizards knelt where it touched the ground and set a stake there, driving it into the hard earth with a wooden mallet.

Megistal, though exhausted, noticed again the odd, distant rumbling sound that seemed to become more pronounced each time they ran their tests. It was as though something, somewhere, was reacting to the magic of the search. What it was none of them knew, or really cared. The blood-red light winked out as the wizard lowered his arms. “That’s one corner,” he said. “Who’s next?”

Tantas paced a distance from the stake, scuttling as he always did, and drew his blue-black seek-stones from his pack. As Megistal had done earlier with his bloodstone seekers, the dark wizard lifted his arms, holding the stones high. “Dactis tat dervum!” he commanded. Inky mists grew around his hands. “Chapak!” From the dark mists, brilliant lightning streaked outward, sizzling and scorching the ground where it touched. Sigamon and Megistal ran to mark the spot, and again the meadow seemed to rumble angrily. Within the past two days, the sound had become quite loud.

The spot chosen by Tantas’s lightning was thirty yards from the point where Megistal’s red light had struck. Sigamon paced the distance, then placed himself directly between the two points. His mark would complete the triangle, but only by testing could they know which direction the triangle should point. Sigamon pulled out his clear, glittering gems and raised them. “Dactis tat osis!” he said. “Chapak!” Blinding white light flowed from his hands and shot out behind him. Where it struck the ground frost formed. The other two ran to mark the place, and once again the very earth seemed to growl.

“I wish we knew what was causing that,” Sigamon remarked. “The Scions didn’t mention anything like that occurring.”

“I wish I knew where my bracelet went,” Tantas grumbled.

“Magic is a new art.” Megistal shrugged. “There is still much that isn’t known. But once the Towers of Sorcery are in place, the learning can proceed more rapidly.”

*

In a dark place deep beneath the surface, cold mists stirred and swirled to echoing roars of pure, intense anger. Like a sleeper beset by insects, she had hissed and grumbled, clinging to sleep, shutting out the torments. But they had continued too long – the stings of unseen aggravation that annoyed her – and now that she was awake, her roar was like the only name she had ever had. Rage.

How long had she slept? She had no way of knowing, but she knew it had been a very long time. Ages of time. Where once there had been an ice cavern, deep within a mountain, now cold mists swirled. And where once she had been trapped within the ice – imprisoned there by forces beyond imagining – now she lay half-encased by a shell of stone, limestone that had formed around her with the gradual melting of the steel-hard ice. Ages had passed. Eons had come and gone while she slept.

But now she was awake, and her name was Rage, and rage was all of her. Her bondage was over. She had been imprisoned because the creatures of her world feared her, with good reason. They were living things, and Rage was death to them. She had rampaged freely among them, exulting in her power to kill. There had never been another like her. It was as though the forces that created her had regretted what they had done and turned against her, imprisoning her forever in the ice. But now, it seemed, forever was over.

Now she was awake again, and free. How, she didn’t know, but she was. Were there still creatures in this world? Were they still the soft-bodied, screaming things that had so delighted her, things that held warmth within them and writhed in agony as they died? She didn’t know, but she meant to find out. Rage stirred, and the limestone cracked away in the swirling mists that surrounded and clung to her like a silver-dark cloak.

It didn’t matter to Rage how she came to be awakened. All that mattered was that she was awake. She slowly studied the stone around her until she found a crack large enough to permit her passage. With the mists flowing about her and following after her, she went looking for the outside world. Eventually she emerged into moonlight near the base of a great wall of serrated stone, a sheer cliff hundreds of feet high. Before her lay a mountain world of peaks and valleys, of stark slopes and vast vistas.

Turning her back to the cliff from which she had emerged, Rage went hunting.

*

Several hundred miles to the east, where rolling plains began and within view of the eastern range of the mountains of the dwarven realm, high tower windows looked out on the teeming ways and climbing roofs of a great walled city. In the crowded streets below the tower, throngs of people vied for space and for bits of the wealth that was released occasionally by the overlords to sustain the city and its populace. Among them, everywhere, dark-armored and bright-pennanted, marched the companies of grim guards who kept order and enforced the dictates of the overlords.

But the man standing at the tower window was not looking at his city or its thronged streets. Instead he gazed westward, where tall snowcapped peaks, blue with distance, broke the horizon and seemed to dominate it. The nearest and tallest of the peaks, Sky’s End, stood like a defiant monolith, seeming to return the man’s hard gaze. Between the city and the mountains were nearly impassable barriers – miles of dangerous, broken lands where travelers gathered and brigands hid in waiting, and past that, the great chasm known simply as The Gorge. But the barriers to the mountain lands were more than just terrain. The real obstacle was the border of Kal-Thax, the land of the dwarves. For centuries, conqueror after conqueror had tried and failed to penetrate and seize the mountain lands, but the dwarves of Kal-Thax were fierce and stubborn.

Still, the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth had ambitions, and one was to conquer and rule the dwarven realm, to loot it of its riches. And the High Overlord had plans in motion, toward that end.

From the west window he turned and crossed the tower chamber, his gilded slippers making almost no sound on the thick, richly textured carpet that covered the polished stone of the floor.

Directly beneath the east window were the postern gates of the keep, where three men were exiting as the High Overlord looked down. Three wizards had come from a distant encampment, seeking audience, and now three were leaving. But they were not exactly the same three. Two were the same – wizards of the orders of Solinari and Lunitari – but the wizard of the Nuitarian order who had come with them was dead, killed by a magic far greater than his own. In his place a different Nuitarian had joined the remaining two.

The High Overlord did not trust Kistilan. The dark wizard had plans of his own, and the High Overlord knew it. Still, they had an agreement. The mission of the orders – to establish a place of high sorcery in the dwarven lands – was an opportunity too great to let pass. Soon there would be trouble with the dwarves, and Kistilan had agreed to act as the High Overlord’s agent. When the time was right, Kistilan would take command of the mages heading westward where their surveyors had gone and would bring down the fortress of the dwarves.

Would Kistilan then give over the realm to the High Overlord? The ruler of Xak Tsaroth did not trust him that far, but then, he had a contingency plan of his own. If any human could penetrate the lands of the dwarves, cross it, and make alliances with western Ergoth beyond, it was Quist Redfeather. And the High Overlord owned Quist Redfeather. As long as the man’s family remained captive in the lower chambers of his keep, the High Overlord could command the grim Cobar as he pleased, and the man would do his bidding. Quist Redfeather was already on his way across the dwarven realm. Once before the High Overlord had sent such an emissary, but that one had disappeared. But then, that man had not been Quist Redfeather of the Cobar.

The High Overlord looked down from his window and smiled a cold smile. One way or another, he would see the dwarves of the mountains defeated. One way or another, Xak Tsaroth would have the riches of Kal-Thax.

*

In the Year of Tin of the Decade of Cherry, toward the end of the Century of Wind as time is reckoned by the dwarven thanes of Kal-Thax, the great undertaking of Thorbardin was nearing completion. Deep beneath the peak called Cloudseeker, with its crown of three crags, the Windweavers, in the subterranean caverns first discovered by the Daewar explorer-spy Urkhan, the mightiest work of the ages stood almost finished. Brought together by necessity and prodded onward as much by internal conflict as by the dreams of their leaders, the squabbling, bickering subjects of the bonded thanes had, in the opinion of Quill Runebrand, accomplished the improbable.

It was not the building of a huge realm underground – that, after all, was only the logical result of ninety years of concerted effort by the finest planners, delvers, craftsmen, stonemasons, and metalworkers in the world. What Quill held as the height of unlikelihood was that so many dwarves of so many tribes, with so many differences of opinion and so many rock-hard prejudices about one another, could have managed to share the same caverns for so long, without wiping each other out.

Quill Runebrand had never ceased to marvel at the sheer stubbornness behind the great project. Even his old mentor Mistral Thrax, who had been the personal advisor of the visionary Hylar chief Colin Stonetooth, had commented on the strength of purpose that was required, day by day through all the years, to keep thousands and tens of thousands of jovial, arrogant Daewar; suspicious, intuitive Theiwar; sullen, secretive Daergar; and impulsive, unpredictable Klar – not to mention the Hylar, with their tendency to be reserved and aloof; or the Neidar and unaffiliated Einar who wandered about freely; and even the occasional tribes (or tumbles, as Quill thought of them) of bumbling little Aghar – working side by side despite their differences.

Colin Stonetooth, chieftain of the Hylar when they had come to this land, had seen a vision and had somehow passed along its power to the other leaders of that first Council of Thanes. The vision was Thorbardin, fortress heart of the dwarven realm of Kal-Thax.

Now the initial plan was nearly complete. Entire cities stood within the great caverns – bright Daebardin with its quartz shafts and crafted sun-tunnels, murky Daerbardin in the shadowed depths of the south sounds, the twin Theiwar communities of Theibardin and Theibolden on the north shore of the Urkhan Sea, the unnamed Klar city sprawling behind the worm warren, and even a jumble of gullies and crude shelters where Aghar lived – now and again – near the Daergar mineral markets. And, mightiest of all, great Hybardin rising level by level within the giant stalactite the Hylar called the Life Tree.

A hundred varieties of vegetables and edible funguses, and even some exotic grains, were produced in the vast farming warrens. The smelters and forges were never still, and the common markets located along the tunnel roadways thronged with people.

And usually no more than a dozen cases of murder and mayhem were heard each day in the Halls of Justice. To Quill Runebrand, keeper of scrolls and heir to the lore of Mistral Thrax, that was the real wonder of it all. Not in nine tens of years had there been war among the dwarves.

Daewar still plotted and schemed against Hylar, Theiwar still resented and belittled Daewar, Daergar still suspected everyone else of trying to steal their mines, and Klar still ran amok now and then. But still the great project went forward. Thorbardin, the planners said, was within two years of completion. The immense, impenetrable structure of Southgate was in place and in working order, and the portal of Northgate was fitted with its huge screws, awaiting placement of the gate-plug. Sun-tunnels provided sunlight where it was desired, and vast ventilation systems directed the flow of fresh air from the grated ducts in the Valley of the Thanes to the exhaust vents beneath the Windweaver crag. Aqueduct systems designed by Hylar craftsmen carried water to all levels of the cities, and elaborate waste-reusal systems provided fresh organics for the farming warrens.

Even a small magma pit had been completed, deep beneath the lowest levels near Southgate, for the powering of furnaces and smelters. It was, as yet, a balky thing, lacking the natural core of the magma pit the Hylar recalled beneath old Thoradin in the mountains far to the east, but they had succeeded in coaxing it to life, and it worked well enough.

It was no secret, in the human realms surrounding Kal-Thax, that the dwarves were building – or maybe already had built – a fortress to guard their mountain realm, but little was known about it. The dwarves knew it was no secret, but they considered what they did to be their own business and no one else’s. Not since the completion of the Road of Passage, from southern Ergoth across Kal-Thax to the great pass at Tharkas, had there been the massive human assaults on the dwarven lands that had been common in earlier times. The outlanders who traveled the road saw little more of the dwarven environs than the road itself and the formidable armed dwarves who patrolled it. There had been some sporadic assaults in recent years, usually by troops from the human city of Xak Tsaroth, where the overlords coveted the wealth of the dwarves. But these had been turned back, and for the past several years the border had been relatively peaceful.

Only one human had ever seen the inside of Thorbardin, an agent of the overlords who had tried to slip through to western Ergoth to seek an alliance against the dwarves. He had not made it, though. Dwarven patrols had searched him on the Great Road, found his seals and credentials from the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth, and had arrested him. By order of the Council of Thanes, he was taken to Thorbardin.

That man had seen the fortress – or at least a little of it. He was still there, imprisoned in a dungeon, and would remain there at least until the final gate was in place. There was some thought that, once the fortress was complete, he might be given a tour of one of the gateways, then turned loose. It was Olim Goldbuckle’s belief that it might be a good thing for the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth to know just what awaited him if he ever again thought about conquering the dwarves.

Olim Goldbuckle was senior among the chieftains of the Council of Thanes and served as regent. The old Daewar schemer’s beard had gone from sunshine gold to silver in the decades since the Covenant of Thanes, but still he lent to the council that special blend of joviality, energy, and shrewd wisdom that was the very soul of the Daewar people. Of all the thanes, the Daewar had produced more leaders and high officials in Thorbardin than any except the Hylar.

Vog Ironface, once the fiercest of Daergar warriors, was second in seniority on the council. The dark-seeker had become no less fierce over the years, as many an impudent challenger had learned, but in council he was quiet and contemplative. Often the last to speak, his voice echoing hollowly from behind his metal mask, or – sometimes – almost whispering as he made a major point in debate, Vog Ironface was known for the cold, incisive wisdom of his thoughts as much as for his reclusiveness outside of formal council meetings.

Third in seniority was Slide Tolec. It was said of him that he had never wanted to be chieftain of the Theiwar and had spent ninety years trying to retire, but his own people would not let him. Long-armed, broad-shouldered, and gray of mane when he removed his mesh headgear, Slide Tolec had become a revered member of the high council simply by being intuitively aware – more than any other among them – of the expectations, hopes, and grievances of the people of Thorbardin. When Slide Tolec spoke of the mood of the people, the other chieftains listened.

And then there were the Hylar. Though not the most senior member of the council, Willen Ironmaul was greatly respected, not only in his own right but as successor to the first Hylar leader, Colin Stonetooth. At about a hundred and fifty years of age, Willen Ironmaul was big, strong, and fit, but to his vitality had been added a deep, almost tangible dignity. Of all the chieftains on the council, Willen Ironmaul – the former leader of the Hylar Guard – was the one who best exemplified the honor and discipline that had become the code of all the forces of Thorbardin. In the wisdom he displayed as a leader of Thorbardin was the echo of yet another wisdom, that of Tera Sharn, his adored wife and the daughter of Colin Stonetooth. And though he held no position of authority, the chieftain’s son, Damon Omenborn, also was a highly respected dwarf.

Among the high officials of Thorbardin were at least seven top officers who were of Hylar stock. Quill Runebrand had speculated that each culture generated its own special qualities. Daewar excelled in trade, diplomacy, and many of the stone crafts; Theiwar excelled in matters of plain logic brightened by intuition, as well as in the crafting of rails, cables, and roadways; and the Daergar were accepted masters of mining and minerals.

In the same way, Quill supposed, the Hylar tended to produce both warriors and leaders. Oddly, they also produced poets and musicians, but that seemed to be beside the point. The point was, he assured himself, that of all the necessary functions of Thorbardin, nearly half were directed by Hylar.

As keeper of scrolls, Quill Runebrand wandered Thorbardin, snooping and observing, listening and questioning, and each day he repaired to his cubicle to enscroll his notes and make his observations, chronicling the great adventure of the creation of Krynn’s finest fortress.

Lately, he had taken to following Damon Omenborn around. It had started the day Quill went out onto the lower slopes to witness a combat between Damon and his uncle, the Neidar chieftain Cale Greeneye. The challenge was a good-natured one, following an argument over which was mightier in combat, the hammer or the axe. They had not come to any agreement, so, in good dwarven fashion, the only thing to do was to fight it out.

Quill would never forget that day. There on the sunny meadows of the lower slopes, under a spreading tree, the two warriors – uncle and nephew – had donned armor and taken up arms while hundreds of curious dwarves gathered around to watch.

The weapons were simple. Damon had carried a hammer and shield, Cale Greeneye an axe and shield. They had faced each other, saluted, then launched a simultaneous attack, each doing his best to kill the other, just to prove his point.

It was recorded that the two had fought for most of an afternoon, pounding away at each other, lunging, swinging, dodging, and shielding while the sun of Krynn swept from directly above the Windweaver crag to just above the Anviltops in the west. Four times the fight had stopped, while the combatants outfitted themselves with fresh armor and new shields – the discarded items were so dented and bent that they were good only for scrap – then continued with fresh enthusiasm.

The argument never had been settled. The Neidar with his axe was a match for the Hylar with his hammer, and the Hylar was the equal of the Neidar as well. Finally the two contestants had backed away, saluted each other, and gone off together to see what kind of ale might be found in the taverns of Gateway.

Behind them, though, a ritual was being born. Many a wager had been laid by onlookers during the combat. The wagers being unsettled by the outcome of the battle, others had taken up the contest. A Daewar merchant had started it by refusing to pay off a side bet to a Neidar woodsman. Before the echoes of their shouts had died away, the two had armed themselves and were having at it under that same spreading tree. Within minutes, a dozen separate conflicts had broken out around them, and the slopes rang with the clash and clatter of steel on steel. From that day forward, it was the custom to settle disputed wagers not in the pits of the Great Hall, where taunts and challenges were often heard, but out on the slopes under what would be named the Tree of Pittance.

Since then, Quill Runebrand had taken particular interest in Damon Omenborn and had tagged after him with an eye to learning whether the Hylar chieftain’s son had plans to remarry. Damon had married once at about fifty years of age to a lovely Hylar girl named Dena Grayslate. But Dena had died childless, drowned in the Urkhan Sea when a cable-boat capsized, and Damon had never really gotten over it.

Still, there was the legend of Damon’s birth – that an apparition had appeared and proclaimed that the child would be the “father of kings.” It was a puzzling legend, since there were no kings in Thorbardin, and it was unlikely there ever would be, considering the tribal rivalries of the thanes. Damon Omenborn was ninety years old now – still a robust young dwarf, but certainly no longer a youth. And far from being the father of kings, it was beginning to look as though he might never be a father at all if he didn’t put his grief behind him and find a wife.

So Quill Runebrand had taken it upon himself to bedevil the chieftain’s burly son about his “responsibilities” – to the point that he began to fear that the big dwarf might break a few of his bones in irritation.

Just now, though, Damon was away from Thorbardin. He had gone off on some errand with his friend Mace Hammerstand, captain of the Roving Guard, and hadn’t returned.

Quill had shrugged and resumed his old habits. He roamed, pried and inquired, and made notes. Each evening, at the dimming of the sun-tunnels, he put away his work and made his way to the Den of Respite. Among the things he had learned from old Mistral Thrax was the appreciation of a half-loaf, pot meat, and a mug of good dwarven ale.

The Dwarven Realm of Old Kal-Thax
Kharolis Mountains

Century of Wind

Decade of Cherry

Spring, Year of Tin

(The ninetieth year in the construction of Thorbardin,

founded by the bonded thanes of Kal-Thax,

under the Covenant of the Forge.)

Chapter 1

THE RAGE-SEEKERS

The scene was like the others that the Neidar had reported. What had been a tiny village, deep within a little valley among the Horn’s Echo Peaks west of the Windweavers, now was a scene of wreckage and devastation. Damon Omenborn stood on a low ledge, brow-shadowed eyes narrowed and cold as he turned slowly, scanning the surrounding slopes for any sign they might give. Beside him his uncle, the Neidar leader Cale Greeneye, cursed quietly and methodically, shaking his head. Below them, Neidar scouts mingled with Mace Hammerstand’s grim warriors from Thorbardin as they poked through the debris, gray-faced and shaken at what they found.

A few of the low, thatch-roofed cabins had burned, though most were simply demolished and ransacked as though by something gone berserk. Tables, chairs, stools, and cots lay broken and splintered. Bits of fabric, once clothing, towels, and even tapestries, now lay sodden or fluttered in the breeze like little shredded flags. Damaged tools lay scattered on the ground, and even humble cooking pots were strewn about, bent and dented.

Some of the houses and outbuildings had doors smashed inward and stood empty and deserted. But other cabins had been literally torn apart, ripped asunder log from lintel, their heavy plank doors and shutters torn from their hinges, their roofs smashed as though by rockslides. Within these, which had been the soundest and strongest of the village structures, lay most of the dead. The people had known that something fearful was upon them and had tried to protect themselves. But their efforts had failed. Whatever had wanted in had gotten in, one way or another.

Everywhere there was spattered blood, drying in the high mountain air, and the bodies of the dead brought a pallor to even the hardiest dwarves. These people had not been merely killed. They had been violated, their bodies ripped and torn apart. They had been mutilated as horribly as the carcasses of their flocks in the surrounding pastures, as the devastated crops left ruined and flattened in their fields.

Cale said it was like the other villages where this had happened – three times now, that the Neidar knew about – except for two things. The other tragedies had occurred in distant border villages far to the northwest in the shadows of the Iron Wall Peaks. This was much deeper into Kal-Thax and much closer to the undermountain fortress of Thorbardin. There had been no survivors the other two times. This time there were. Damon gazed down at the little group huddled around a tiny fire and felt a stab of pity. There were only four of them there, being attended and questioned by Cale’s Neidar followers and a handful of Thorbardin warriors, Mace Hammerstand’s Roving Guard, with whom Damon had come from the great fortress beneath the Windweavers.

Four survivors. Out of a hundred or more peaceful, harmless Einar dwarves minding their own business in their little settlement, only four had survived! A gray-bearded ancient with blood on his shirt, a young woman with auburn hair whose haunted eyes looked out from a face covered with smudges and grime, and two young, orphaned children were all that remained of the village of Windhollow. They had escaped the fury of – whatever it was – by hiding in a root cellar.

“No one here had a chance,” Damon muttered, his cold gray eyes wintry and fierce. Wind-whipped and tight with barely controlled emotions, he tensed hard shoulders and turned his eyes away from the carnage below. Though at five feet, four inches, Damon was taller than most of his kind, and ninety years had brought him to full maturity, still at this moment he seemed – to his uncle – to be very young. Nothing in Damon’s life so far, in and around the great subterranean realm of Thorbardin, had prepared him for such savagery as was displayed here. Damon had known grief, of course. Cale wondered if his nephew had ever really recovered from the loss of his wife to the waters of the Urkhan Sea. But no one was ever prepared for a spectacle like this.

Cale Greeneye shook his head, grim anger narrowing his own eyes as the thin, cold mountain breeze rippled his full snow-touched beard. For three hundred years these Einar had kept to their little valley, tending their herds and their crops, supporting their families, hurting no one. Yet something deadly had come, and now – in one night – everything was destroyed.

But by what?

“No chance at all,” the Neidar leader rumbled, agreeing with his nephew.

They had spoken to the survivors, but learned almost nothing. Whatever it was that came had come unseen. Mists had rolled in that evening, and a heavy fog. The destroyer had been in the cloaking mists. They had heard its roar, and had glimpses of … of something very evil and very large that seemed to wrap itself in fog and darkness. Then the terror had begun. The old dwarf’s hands shook as he tried to describe the sounds and scents of rampaging death. The children had cringed, wide-eyed and pale, remembering. Of them all, only the young woman, Willow Summercloud, had not wept. She had seemed to feel no emotion at all … until one met her eyes and saw there a determination so deep and cold that it was like mountain snow.

Cale Greeneye gritted his teeth and looked away. In a hundred and thirty years of life he had fought many things, many times – hordes of human mercenaries, ogres and goblins on the border slopes of Kal-Thax, great cats in the hidden valley southwest of Tharkas. Like most dwarves in these lands, he had seen death and had known grief. He had seen the great pit beneath which lay the remains of his brother, Handil the Drum. He had seen the lifeless body of his own father, Colin Stonetooth, after the old chieftain was felled by treachery so long ago – ninety years or more – in the caverns beneath the Windweavers. And, like Damon, he had known the worst grief. He had lost his own beloved Spring, wife and best friend of nearly seventy years, to an avalanche.

Through the years, many a grief had touched the dwarf known once as Cale Cloudwalker of the Calnar, later Cale Chieftain’s-Son of the Hylar, and now as Cale Greeneye of the Neidar.

But never had anything touched him more deeply than the sight of these four desolate dwarves staring at what was left of their homes. The old one sat with dull eyes that saw nothing and shut out everything. The two children seemed to be in a trance, and the young woman – Willow Summercloud – wandered aimlessly here and there, poking through wreckage.

“We must find the thing that did this,” Cale told Damon. “The Neidar know these mountains best. We will search.”

At the scrape of steel soles on stone, they turned. Mace Hammerstand, captain of the Roving Guard and leader of the Thorbardin expedition, had completed his questioning of the survivors and was climbing up to join the two on the ledge. Like the other two, the young captain was of Hylar stock, with the dark, back-swept beard, chiseled features, and intense, thoughtful eyes of his ancestors. Polished steel armor glinted beneath his short cape of gray velvet, and the hammer and shield at his back were carried as casually as a stonemason would carry a wedge-maul. Like all of the Roving Guard of Thorbardin, Mace Hammerstand – at three inches over five feet in stature, nearly as tall as Damon himself – was a formidable warrior. But the eyes he turned upon Cale and Damon now were full of distress.

“They’ve told us all they can,” the captain said. “Maybe they had a glimpse of the thing in the fog, but they aren’t sure. They heard it, though. They heard it” — he gestured futilely, indicating the strewn devastation of the little valley — “doing that.”

“Nothing more?” Cale frowned. “There must be something they can tell us.”

“It was large.” Mace shrugged. “It came in low, beneath the mists on the fields, but when it raised itself upright, it stood above the roofs of the cabins. The fog seemed to follow it, as though it were draped and wrapped in swirling mist. And its roar was like winter wind that rattled the walls. The old one has an impression of great fangs – as long, he says, as he is tall – and of huge, rending claws. But he saw only a glimpse and isn’t sure even of that.” Mace sighed. “Now he sees nothing at all. He says he doesn’t care to see any more.”

“No tracks?” Cale pressed. “Nothing?”

“We have found marks.” The Hylar nodded. “Your scouts found them. But they are indistinct. How do you look for the tracks of something that might have anything for feet? Or might not even walk?”

“What does that mean?” Cale glanced at him.

“I don’t know. It’s something one of the children said. The littlest one. He said the cellar door rattled when the fog beat its wings.”

“Wings,” Cale mused. “Like a dragon?”

“Who knows?” Mace shook his head. “Have you ever seen a dragon, Cale?”

“No,” the Neidar admitted. “I never have.”

“Nor have I. Nor has anyone else I know. But I don’t believe this was the work of any dragon. Why would a dragon hide itself in mists? And why” — he pointed again, out across the rent fields, the shattered village — “why would a dragon wreak such mindless havoc? They say dragons are mighty, and can be fierce, but I never heard of a dragon as berserk as a bell-taunted tractor worm.”

Cale stroked his beard, thinking. What could be as powerful as a dragon, and as big as a dragon, and maybe even fly like a dragon, but was not a dragon? He shook his head and pulled his heavy, mottled cloak around him, seeming to blend into the mist and stone of the surroundings.

Like an elf, Mace thought. These Neidar become the terrain, as elves become their forests. Yet, glancing at Cale’s troubled face beneath his studded helmet – the dark hair with only traces of gray, the trimmed, back-swept beard – reminded him that Cale Greeneye, youngest son of the legendary chieftain Colin Stonetooth, was as much Hylar by origin as he himself was. As Hylar as the big Damon Omenborn and his father, the Hylar chieftain Willen Ironmaul – Cale’s brother-in-law. Cale Greeneye was of Hylar stock and had been Hylar once, before choosing the sun over the stone – the axe over the hammer. Some said that Cale Greeneye had been the first of those who now called themselves Neidar – a bonded thane, and as much a part of Thorbardin as those who lived beneath the mountain peaks.

Yet the Neidar preferred life outside to life inside the great caverns of the subterranean fortress. They numbered in the thousands now and were often present within the cavern walls. But they didn’t really live there. They came to trade and to visit, and sometimes to sit in council with the other thanes. They served Kal-Thax as scouts and observers, as border guards, and as guardians of the great Road of Passage that ran through the dwarven lands from the southern plains of the human realms to the vast lands north of Tharkas.

Many of the Neidar had been simple Einar in times past – the people of valleys and scattered villages like this one had been. But there were also many Neidar who had been of the undermountain thanes. Among them were gold-bearded Daewar, stocky, long-armed Theiwar, and even a few iron-masked Daergar and wild-haired Klar. Like Cale Greeneye, they were Neidar because they chose to be Neidar, because they preferred the outsides of mountains to the insides.

Just as the Holgar – the combined thanes working to complete the great gates and the intricate ventilation systems, which were the final tasks in the building of Fortress Thorbardin – were considered people of the hammer, so the Neidar were considered people of the axe.

Mace Hammerstand shook himself out of his thoughts and turned to look once more across the devastated little valley. “We’ve done all we can do here,” he said. “But for burying the dead and drumming a dirge over them, there’s nothing more that the guards can do except report back to Thorbardin.”

“It’s out there somewhere,” Cale Greeneye muttered, turning slowly as he scanned the immense vistas of the Kharolis Mountains. “First Meadowfair, then the digs at Ironstone, and now here, at Windhollow. Each time, deeper into Kal-Thax. Whatever did this, it’s out there somewhere. It has to be found and destroyed.” With an angry oath he swung his shield to his back, slung his axe at his side, pushed back his cloak, and whistled shrilly. Turning toward his nephew, he said, “I’m glad you came, Damon. My regards to your mother and your father. Tell them … say that if this thing can be found, we will find it and destroy it.” Then he headed down from the ledge, into the little valley.

Damon Omenborn did not respond, or watch him go. The big Hylar was gazing westward, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Cale’s Neidar company met him at the foot of the slope – sixty grim-faced dwarves, some leading their horses, some already mounted. Molt Bronzecap led his chief’s horse, Piquin, forward and handed him the reins. Many generations of fine horses separated this Piquin from the great Calnar steed Cale had ridden so long ago on the great trek of the Hylar exiles from Thoradin to Kal-Thax. This Piquin was not as tall as the great horse who was his ancestor. But he was big enough, sturdy and strong, with both the mountain-bred stamina of those tall Calnar steeds of the past and the quick, precise reflexes of the Ergothian plains horses who were also his ancestors. With treaties and trade had come cross-breeding of stock, and now both the dwarves of Kal-Thax and the humans of southern Ergoth preferred and prized these fine mounts. The knights of the human realms had come to refer to them as “war horses.”

Cale rubbed the horse’s muzzle with strong, gentle fingers and turned to face his company. “We don’t know what manner of beast murdered these people,” he said. “And we don’t know where it went. But it is within Kal-Thax now. I call for volunteers to help me find it.”

Instantly, the entire Neidar company moved forward, volunteering. Cale shook his head, looking from one to another of them. Most of them were young adventurers, all rode with him by choice, and he knew that each would happily follow him anywhere. Here jovial blue eyes glinted above the golden whiskers of a Daewar face; there serious gray eyes above the swept-back beard of Hylar heritage; and just beyond, the somber features, wide shoulders and long arms of one whose parents were Theiwar; side by side with a fierce, grinning youngster whose unruly mane and sparse beard spoke of Klar background.

One, who had stepped his mount closer than most, seemed to have no face at all – only a featureless iron ovoid with an eye-slit, hiding him from helm to chin. Crag Ironface was older than most of the company, nearer to Cale’s own age. The son of old Vog Ironface, chieftain of the Daergar of Thorbardin, Crag had been among the first of the dark-seeking Daergar to venture from that people’s mines and tunnels and seek the outside world of the Neidar.

“You, Crag,” Cale said. “The thing we seek is a thing of darkness and the mist. Maybe your eyes will see what others of us might miss.” He scanned the line. “You, Gem Coppertoe” — he pointed at a Daewar, then at a wide-shouldered Theiwar youth — “and you, Pounce Tambac. And you, Molt, and you …” He went on, selecting ten from among them to accompany him in the search. Then he turned to a curly-bearded former Einar and nodded. “Take charge of the rest of the company, Gran. There is still the business of those wizards. Go northeast to where the Road of Passage cuts through the Redrock Peaks. Talk to the guards there, and see what they know. If human magic-users have strayed into these lands, they are trespassing. See if you can find them and prod them on their way.”

“I hope the reports are wrong,” Gran Stonemill said. “I have no use for mages.”

“Nor does anyone else,” Cale assured him. “Just find them and ask them to leave, but take no chances. Be careful.”

“Aye,” Gran rumbled. “The less association with spell-makers, the better. But what if we find them, and they won’t leave?”

“Then get back to Thorbardin and let the Council of Thanes decide what to do about them.” Cale released the little boarding ladder on Piquin’s saddle skirt, clambered up, and resecured the ladder. “We’ll meet back at Northgate,” he told Gran. He raised his arm and swung it downward, spurring Piquin. “Volunteers! With me!”

Mace Hammerstand watched with troubled eyes as the Neidar rode away, Cale and his ten eastward, the rest northward toward the Great Road. Then he signaled his drummers to call assembly. His own company of Thorbardin guards still had work to do here, as unpleasant as it was. There were dead dwarves to be buried and honored.

Other people were on the scene now, too – groups of Einar from the next valley, coming forward to take charge of the four survivors, to care for them. It was some of these – people from the settlement of Under-bluff – who had found and reported the destruction of Windhollow.

Damon Omenborn had knelt below the ledge and was scratching patterns in the sand with the point of his dagger. “Meadowfair was first,” he muttered, “then Ironstone. And now here. The path is an arc, first northward and then east. It came from the west then. Beyond Meadowfair.” He stood, straightening his light armor. His great Hylar sword swung at his side, seeming almost a toy against his powerful stature – so like the stature of his father, Willen Ironmaul, chieftain of the Hylar. “It came from the wilderness. Sheercliff and the Anviltops lie beyond Meadowfair.

“I want to backtrack to where this thing came from,” he told Mace. “There may be something to be learned there.”

“I have to return with the Guard and report,” Mace Hammerstand reminded him. “The members of the council will be waiting.”

“You don’t need me to report,” Damon said. “And I don’t need the Guard. I’m going to find where this thing originated.” He waved, and a guardsman brought up his horse, one of Willen Ironmaul’s prize herd.

“Don’t go alone,” Mace urged. “At least take a few of my guards with you.”

From the ranks, a strapping youngster with the mesh faceplate and long arms of Theiwar stock stepped forward. “I’ll go, Captain,” he told Mace.

“And I,” a gold-bearded Daewar added.

Mace looked at them, then nodded. “Very well, Tag Salan and Copper Blueboot.” He turned to Damon. “Take these two, at least,” he insisted, “though I don’t like the idea of you heading out there, Damon, even with escort.”

“I go where I please in Kal-Thax,” the big dwarf reminded the captain sternly. Horses were already being brought forward for the two escorts. Damon clapped his friend on the shoulder. “If you’re worried about what my mother will say, Mace, tell her you tried to stop me and I bounced a rock off your skull.”

Damon felt someone tugging at his cloak and turned. The Einar girl stood there, looking up at him with large grave eyes. Among the wreckage of the village she had found bits of warm clothing and other things. Now she stood before him, wrapped in furs and woolens and carrying a stained sling-pack. On her feet were sturdy boots, and in one hand she held a forester’s axe. Despite the ordeal she had been through, she was dry-eyed and calm, though in her eyes was a burning anger. “I want to go with you,” she said. “I want to find that … that thing’s den. I want to see where it came from, and why.”

Damon stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Your place is here,” he said softly. “We will be traveling fast and have no time for anyone who might slow us down.”

Her eyes, full of anger and scorn like clouds in a summer sky, blazed at him. They were like her name, Summercloud.

“Fast?” She hissed the word and turned to point where the Neidar had gone. “They travel fast, Holgar. The Neidar. I can keep up with a hole-dweller like you anytime. I demand to go with you! I want to learn what that thing is, so I can help kill it.”

At a loss for words in the face of such scorn and fury, Damon spread his hands, then clenched his jaw and shook his head. “You’ve been through a bad experience,” he said. “I understand your feelings, your loss. …”

“Loss!” Willow glared at him. “What would you know of loss, you who live sheltered by mountaintops? My whole family died here, hole-dweller! My father and mother, my sisters, my grandmother. You weren’t here. You didn’t hear the screams, but I did. Maybe the Neidar will find that thing and kill it, and maybe not. But I’m going with you.”

“No, you aren’t,” he said flatly. “You are staying here.” He turned. “Mace, look after this girl. She’s upset and distraught, and not thinking clearly. Take care of her.”

With his two members of the Roving Guard, Damon Omenborn – Damon the Quiet, only son of the chieftain of Thane Hylar of Thorbardin – mounted and headed west, toward the distant, climbing ranges of Kal-Thax. And as the mountain terrain unfolded ahead, he admitted to himself that he shared something in common with his uncle, Cale Greeneye. Damon was not Neidar; he preferred the bustle of Thorbardin to the open spaces outside. But now and then, he admitted, it was good to breathe the open air of the mountains.

Watching them disappear around a bend on the climbing trail westward, Mace Hammerstand whispered a quick prayer to Reorx to protect them. He knew Damon could take care of himself. There wasn’t a tougher fighter in all of Thorbardin. And the others, Tag Salan and Copper Blueboot, though young, were also seasoned fighters. Still, he had a bad feeling about the three taking off like that. It would have been better had they stayed with the main company.

Beside him, the girl stood, still holding her axe in white-knuckled hands and watching where the three had gone. “What does that Hylar know of loss?” Willow Summercloud spat.

“Quite a lot,” Mace said gently. “More than most people would guess.” He turned away. “I hope there is truth in prophecy,” he muttered to himself.

Behind him, Willow said, “What?”

“Nothing.” Mace shook his head. “I was just thinking about an old prophecy, that Damon Omenborn will one day be the ‘father of kings.’ If it’s true, it should protect him against his own foolhardiness, because he isn’t anyone’s father yet.”

Mace was busy for a time, directing the preparation of graves. When again he thought of the girl and went to look for her, Willow was nowhere to be found.

Chapter 2

INTO THE WILDERNESS

Among most humans – and even among elves, in certain circumstances – serving as escort to the son of a high chieftain would have been a privilege and an honor. But Damon Omenborn knew that for the two members of the Roving Guard riding west with him, their pleasure at the journey had nothing to do with honor. Among the dwarves, no special prestige was attached to being related to someone important. To the pragmatic, individualistic people of Thorbardin, respect and honor were things earned – each person for himself – and did not follow bloodlines.

The pleasure of Tag Salan and Copper Blueboot in accompanying Damon on his mission lay simply in the fact that they liked him, just as he liked them. Damon had many friends among the Roving Guard and had once been one of them before the death of his wife. He had been out on a mission when the boat accident happened, and had never really forgiven himself for being gone when he could have been with her. But instead of being in Thorbardin he was tracking down a rogue magician who had wandered into dwarven lands and was causing havoc among the Einar.

They had never found the magician. He had disappeared, not to be seen again. But through the years, Damon had nurtured a deep and abiding dislike for magic and the users of magic – a dislike even more intense than the distaste most dwarves felt for wizards.

Still, he rarely displayed much anger. If there was one truly disconcerting thing about Damon Omenborn – aside from the sheer size he had inherited from his father – it was that. He simply never seemed to lose his temper. The Hylar were, of course, a cool-headed people by nature. Everyone knew that. As a rule, Hylar were neither as jovial and exuberant as Daewar nor as quick to anger as the explosive Daergar. Still, Hylar or not, they were dwarves, and theirs was, by and large, a quick-tempered race – quick to anger, quick to react, and, usually, just as quick to forgive and forget afterward.

But if Damon Omenborn ever felt anger, no one had detected it, and many found that quality ominous. What would it take to make Damon Omenborn angry? And – an alarming question to those who knew him well, who knew his strength and his skill – what would he be like if he ever really got mad?

Even now, heading into the wilderness with the memory of the destroyed village still fresh, it seemed to Tag and Copper that Damon was not angry, just intense and curious.

Damon’s map in the sand had told him roughly where the – whatever it was – had begun its foray. He headed straight for the central Anviltops to the west, and, with four days of travel behind them, the three dwarves saw the dark, ruler-straight expanse of Sheercliff in the distance ahead.

The Anviltop range was west of Thorbardin near the center of the old dwarven realm traditionally known as Kal-Thax. Like most places in Kal-Thax, the mountains were named for what they resembled – a long, north-to-south ridge of tall peaks, many of them flat-topped in silhouette, like giant anvils. Along the east slope of the range, near its center, a wide, flat plateau extended outward from the mountains, several miles wide in some places, to the sheer, clefted drop that was Sheercliff. From the east, it was a huge, rough wall of solid stone, many miles in length and rising sometimes hundreds of feet straight up from the slopes below, slopes that dropped away into a series of deep, stony canyons.

Though it lay in central Kal-Thax, the region was one of the wildest and most remote in the dwarven realm. It had been casually noted by Einar herdsmen in the early years of Kal-Thax, but except for observations from a distance – from which had come the names of the Anviltop mountains and of Sheercliff and the broken canyons – the area was largely unexplored. Daergar miners had spoken of Sheercliff as a place where hard ores might be sought sometime in the future, and some of the Daewar spoke of the possibility of extending trade routes across the middle ranges to foster commerce with the humans of western Ergoth – and maybe with the roaming elves who frequented the forests beyond Skywall. But no one had ever really charted or explored the central lands. Most of the dwarven settlement of the mountains of Kal-Thax lay in the eastern third of the region, where the Einar had found fertile valleys and good graze, where the clans had become thanes, and where the immense fortress of Thorbardin was being created deep within a mountain.

As far as anyone in the Thorbardin realm knew, central Kal-Thax was empty.

By the time the travelers made their fourth night camp, within sight of Sheercliff, they were a long way from any place where anyone lived. Thus it came as a surprise when, from the top of a stone bluff in the darkness before the rising of the moons, Tag Salan spotted a speck of firelight some miles away, back the way they had come, on the far side of the wild valley they had spent most of the day crossing. He called to the others and pointed it out to them, but they had no idea whose fire it might be. They hadn’t passed anyone that they knew of. In fact, in the past two days they hadn’t seen anyone at all.

Still, out there to the east, across the valley they had just crossed, someone had a fire going.

“Einar traders?” the Theiwar wondered. “I didn’t see any paths back there, but we could have crossed a trail of some kind.”

“Neidar, maybe,” the Daewar suggested. “They range far out. Maybe they come this far. It might even be some of those searching for the beast.”

“Not likely,” the Hylar said. “The beast was going the other way. It could be Neidar, though, on some other errand. Or it could be a Daergar scouting party looking for new veins to mine.”

“Daergar don’t camp for the night,” the Daewar noted. “Not usually, anyway. They’d rather travel at night than in the daytime. Daylight can hurt their eyes if it’s bright.”

“Then maybe that isn’t a supper fire,” Damon suggested. “Maybe it’s a breakfast fire. It doesn’t matter, though. Whoever they are, they aren’t our concern.” He shrugged and turned to look westward. “That’s our concern. Somewhere ahead, there, is where the thing came from.”

“If your uncle Cale and his Neidar find it, we won’t have to worry about what it used to be,” the Theiwar stated. “They’ll kill it, whatever it is.”

“Then let’s hope they do, and soon.” Damon nodded. “But let’s make sure that, whatever the thing is, there aren’t any more where it came from.”

“Where do we start our search?”

“We’ll start at Sheercliff, and look there. We’ll split up and just scout around. I don’t know what we’re looking for. Maybe a nest of some kind, a cave with fresh tracks nearby, a roost …” He shrugged.

“That’s fine with me,” Tag Salan agreed. “But I intend to have my weapons ready to hand every step of the way.”

The Daewar glanced at the Theiwar and grinned. “I’ve never seen you in any other condition, shadow-hugger. Without your sword, shield, knives, and bludgeons, I don’t think I’d recognize you.”

Damon was staring westward, squinting in concentration, his eyes straining as he tried to see in the fading light. Tag Salan noticed his intense gaze and followed it. “Did you see something, Damon?”

“I thought I did. Like a flash of light, far away.” The three of them scanned the distance, and Tag pointed. “There! I saw it that time. What was it? Lightning?”

“Lightning where there are no clouds?” Copper rasped. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, it was more than a spark, but it wasn’t firelight.”

As the three watched, another distant flash came, a brief flare of bright light, gone in an instant. This time, they saw where it seemed to come from and noted the location by landmarks. The flashes came from Sheercliff. Whether above or below the line of the great fault, they couldn’t tell across the miles, but the flashes had all come from the same place, an area in line with a V-shaped cut in the silhouette of the Anviltops beyond.

They saw no more flashes, though they watched until the moons were high. Just those three, and no more. But it gave them a place to aim for. “We’ll begin our search there,” Damon said. “Tag, your eyes are best in shadow. You take the slopes below Sheercliff, and I’ll climb the wall and look above, on the plateau. Copper, we’ll leave the horses with you. Find a high point east of the cliff, and have a look from there. You might see something at a distance that we would miss up close.”

They made no fire that night. The speck of firelight to the east, and those odd flashes from Sheercliff to the west, told them that they were not alone in the wilderness. So the three made a cold meal of dried meat and flatbread, put their mounts on good graze beside a tiny stream, and settled in for the night. They would take turns at watch, with a particular eye on both the campfire behind them and the cliff-line ahead. Damon took first watch and awakened Tag Salan when the moons were in the western sky.

Had the Theiwar been third on watch, in the dark hours before morning when the moons had set and only starlight fell on the mountains, he might have seen the shadow that drifted by overhead, dark against the darkness. But Copper Blueboot was on watch then, and his Daewar eyes were better suited to daylight than to darkness. So, though he was alert and watchful, he did not notice the shape above as it passed over the dark camp, heading eastward toward the tiny, glowing embers of the campfire the dwarves had seen earlier.

*

Willow Summercloud was plagued by dark dreams, as she had been each night since the devastation of her village by the thing that came in the fog. Wrapped in a sheepskin beside the fading embers of her little fire, she tossed and turned, catching what moments of rest she could between the dreadful dreams that kept awakening her and the drifting slumber that would lead only to more such dreams.

This time, though, she awakened not from a dream but to a sound. Even as the sleep faded from her mind, she was out of the sheepskin and crouching, her axe in her hand as she scanned the darkness around her. Something had moved, had made a sound, and was nearby, but for a long moment she saw nothing. Then, dimly against the starry sky, she saw a silhouette that moved, turning to look at her with one big, glistening eye, then with another.

Gripping her axe in both hands, she backed away, squinting. The thing looked like a huge bird in the darkness, with a suggestion of tucked wings and a beak, and long, spread tail feathers that twitched as it turned its head.

“Who … who are you?” she quavered. “What are you?”

The voice that answered her came not from the great bird, but from a point lower down, near her faintly glowing campfire. “No sense trying to talk to Cawe,” it said cheerfully. “Cawe can’t talk. That’s why he lets me ride along, so I can talk for him if there is anybody to talk to. What’s that you’re holding? An axe? We won’t need it. There’s some wood right here to build up the fire.”

A small shadow crouched beside the coals, bent low, and blew on them, flaring them to life, then put on a few sticks. “That should do it,” the voice said. “Now maybe we can see who we’re talking to.”

As the sticks caught and began to blaze, Willow squinted. Standing by her fire was a small person, far shorter even than herself, and delicately proportioned. The creature was not much more than three feet tall, quick and graceful, with a high musical voice and a great mane of dark hair that flowed like a cascade from a tied band atop its head. Beyond, huge against the night shadows, was the thing Willow had thought was a bird. She gasped as she realized that it was a bird, though a hundred times the size of any bird she had ever seen. Its curved beak was larger than she was, and the sweep of feather ridges above its big, orange eyes gave it an extremely angry look.

“Who are you?” Willow demanded, tearing her gaze away from the giant bird to glare at the tiny person by her fire.

“That’s a good question.” The stranger nodded. “Just the sort of question people should ask if they want to get acquainted. And it’s the very same question I had in mind. Who are you?”

“I’m Willow Summercloud,” she rasped. “If it’s any of your business.”

Turning toward the bird, the small creature trilled what might have been words, or might have been music – a series of complex vocal sounds ranging from low hisses to high dancing trills almost beyond hearing. The bird listened, then responded briefly with a deep piercing chirp that might have come from a mine shaft.

The small person turned again and shrugged. “Cawe likes your name well enough. But what he really wants to know is what you intend to do about those people messing up the mesa over there?”

“Where?” Willow stared at the creature. “What people? What mesa?”

“The one above the cliffs.” The small one pointed westward. “There are people up there making ice and setting fires and doing all sorts of things. What do you intend to do about it?”

“I don’t intend to do anything about it, as far as I know,” Willow admitted. “Why should I?”

“You’re a dwarf, aren’t you? Don’t dwarves frown on humans coming into dwarf territory to perform magic?”

“Magic?” Willow shuddered. “They’re making magic?”

“They certainly are. That’s why Cawe came down from the peaks. His whole family is upset about it, you know. Magic isn’t good for raptors.”

“Is that what he … what your bird is? A raptor? I’ve never seen one.”

“Most people haven’t. Except me, I guess. I’ve seen several of them. Lately I’ve been living with them. But Cawe isn’t my bird. He’s his own bird. I just came along for the ride.”

“Oh, you did,” Willow muttered. “Then how about answering my question.”

“What question?”

“The one you didn’t answer. Who are you?”

“Oh! I guess I didn’t tell you, did I? I’m Shill. Actually, my name is Shillitec Medina Quickfoot, but Shill will do. How do you do?”

“How do I do what?”

“I don’t know. It’s just something people ask when they make themselves acquainted … isn’t it? Or has all that changed?”

The firelight was brighter now, and Willow’s eyes widened as she suddenly realized what kind of creature she was talking to. “You’re a kender!” she said.

“Of course I am,” the small one said. “Or at least I used to be, before that dumb Jass Bellbrush said I was for the birds. That was when I went to live with the raptors, and if what’s-his-name wants me to come back, he’ll have to find me first. But I am a kender, always have been, always will be.”

“But I’ve seen kender.” Willow stared. “You don’t look like the kender I’ve seen. You look like … like a girl!”

“Well, I should hope so!” Shill straightened, smoothing back thick, dark hair. “Because that’s what I am.” She looked around, spotted Willow’s pack, and stepped up to it, squatting to look inside. “Do you have anything to eat in here? I’m hungry.”

“Help yourself …” Willow started to say, then stopped, remembering what she had heard about kender. “No, don’t help yourself. I’ll get you something.” Quickly she went to the pack, brushing the kender aside. “What do you eat?”

“Probably anything,” Shill said.

Pulling a wrapped rabbit-haunch from the pack, Willow glanced up, directly into the fierce, curious eye of the giant bird, which had stepped nearer and leaned for a look. Startled, Willow scooted back, reaching for her axe. “How about him?” she asked the kender girl. “What … what does he eat?”

“About twice a month,” Shill said casually. “Don’t worry about Cawe. He gets his own food.”

Willow stared at the huge bird’s head with its great, curved beak and glaring eyes. “I’ll just bet he does,” she said.

Shill was looking eastward, where dim light grew above the peaks. “It will be morning, soon,” she said. “Cawe can take us over to the mesa where those people are, then you can decide what you are going to do about them.”

Chapter 3

THE INTRUDERS

For almost fifty years, the Great Road of Passage had been in use. Starting in the plains south of the human city of Xak Tsaroth, the road led westward toward the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains, then curved northwestward where it entered the dwarven lands. At a stone bridge of dwarven construction – no human of the time could have managed such a task – the road crossed the Great Gorge west of the broken lands, beneath the eastern shoulder of the massive peak called Sky’s End. There it turned north, skirting the rock-falls below the ruins of what had once been a Daewar fortress, curved long miles around the base of Sky’s End climbing toward a high pass, and from there led directly into the mountain fastness of the old dwarven realm of Kal-Thax. It was a mighty road carved into the very stone of the slopes. It wound northward, avoiding the dwarven settlements in the valleys and the meadows, to emerge finally at the northern border at the huge rift known as Tharkas Pass. Beyond there were realms of humans and others.

The road was the result of the first treaty ever struck between the dwarves of Thorbardin, fortress heart of Kal-Thax, and the humans of the southern plains. Willen Ironmaul, chieftain of the Hylar of Thorbardin, and a knight called Lord Charon had agreed that only by such means – a secured way of passage through the wilds of the dwarven ranges – could both of their realms be free of the hordes of refugees and migrants who were at the time a nuisance to the plains people and a serious threat to the mountain-dwelling dwarves.

The road carefully avoided the city of Xak Tsaroth, and at its plains end was guarded by knights of Eastern Ergoth, protecting those who traveled it against both the depredations of slavers and brigands raiding out of that great city, and the harassment of tariff collectors and armed bullies employed by the overlords of the city. More and more, as the years went by, the knightly orders of human Ergoth were becoming disenchanted with the sprawling, festering city which once had been their primary base. Some among them readily admitted to disenchantment with Ergoth itself.

Nearing the Gorge though, the Road of Passage crossed into dwarven lands. From there to Tharkas Pass, it was patrolled by troops of dwarves answering to the Thanes of Thorbardin. Here the purpose of the patrols was different. The dwarves were not there to protect the travelers. Those who came this way were mostly humans, but of many tribes and with many purposes. There were others, too, sometimes – ogres, though infrequently, and now and then a few kender or a band of wandering elves. On one occasion an entire colony of gnomes had spent nearly a month in the Falconhead Tunnel, before determined dwarves evicted them. The gnomes, it seemed, had somehow gotten stuck in the tunnel, then disagreed among themselves about how to get out and had appointed committees to resolve the issue – a process that, among gnomes, could take years. So a dwarven patrol had expedited their removal.

For the dwarves, the main reason for patrolling the road was to make sure that those who traveled the road stayed on the road and did not stray into dwarven habitat. In Kal-Thax, long ago, the dwarves had forbidden humans or anyone else to settle in and take root. Kal-Thax was for dwarves, and only for dwarves, and the dwarves liked it that way.

Further, in the past few centuries, the dwarves had learned that where humans were, magic would come to be also. Even more than among the elves, there were humans who were fascinated by magic, who grasped it and used it, who practiced it as a dwarf might practice stonemasonry or carpentry.

The dwarves who patrolled the Road of Passage had an excellent record of keeping travelers contained and moving. In fifty years, no more than a handful of humans and one or two ogres had managed to escape from the road and avoid patrols. The exception to the record was kender. The wandering little people were, simply, uncontainable. A kender went where whim directed, and no patrol captain had ever found a way to keep kender on the road if they decided to take off in some other direction. The dwarves had long since stopped trying to keep kender out of Kal-Thax. It wasn’t worth the effort, and aside from being casual thieves and general nuisances, kender were not a threat.

More than any other race, the dwarves agreed, human settlements and humans on the loose must not be tolerated in the realm governed by the thanes of Thorbardin.

When Gran Stonemill and the Neidar company arrived at the Great Road, there was no one on it, and he felt a sense of relief. Gran Stonemill was of Einar descent and had lost ancestors to the wandering hordes of outsiders who had come into these lands in the old days, before the Pact of Exclusion. The road, he knew, was a good idea, but just the sight of outsiders – particularly humans – journeying across Kal-Thax, so close to the scattered fields and villages of the mountain people, was still unsettling to him.

But the road was deserted now. Three hundred feet wide and bordered by high walls of fine dwarven crafting, it wound away southward toward the Great Gorge and northward toward Tharkas Pass, and no one was in sight on the few miles visible from the western crest. At Redrock, though, they found the company of Neidar guards assigned there, and Gran got their report.

Mages, the guard officer told him. Three human mages had entered the road somewhere in Ergoth and had followed it at least beyond the Gorge, where dwarven guards held the bridge. The three had crossed the bridge and had not returned. Drum signals had gone out, alerting those farther on to keep an eye on the humans. But they had not reached Redrock, and a scouting party had gone all the way back to the bridge and found no trace of them. Somewhere along that stretch, the three had left the road. Now, presumably, they were roaming around Kal-Thax, doing whatever humans afflicted with the abomination of magic did.

A search had been conducted, expanding out twelve miles either side of the road, and no trace of them had been found.

Gran shivered at the news. Like any dwarf, his distaste for magic and those who practiced it was intense. Magic was not reasonable. It followed no natural pattern and no natural rules. It was, purely and simply, an abomination.

Like most dwarves, Gran Stonemill had never actually seen a wizard, so far as he knew, and had only the sketchiest idea of what magic-users were capable of doing with their craft. But the stories he had heard told him not to underestimate the power of magic, and his own experience told him to expect the worst of any human. Climbing the sentinel tower, he turned slowly, scanning the mountain terrain, trying to guess what purpose human magicians might have in coming to the dwarvenlands. Certainly the three had a reason for journeying to Kal-Thax, and obviously they didn’t want the dwarves to know why they were there.

But what was the reason, and where had the wizards gone? The mountain land was vast; they could be anywhere.

North? Probably not. Had the three been heading north, they could simply have stayed on the road, where travel was permitted by treaty – even for wizards – and was far easier for humans than cross-country travel in these mountains. Probably not east, either. There lay the Kharolis foothills and, beyond, the plains of human Ergoth. And due east from the Redrock Peaks was the human city of Xak Tsaroth. If the wizards had been heading for Xak Tsaroth from the lower plains, they wouldn’t have come into the mountains in the first place. And having gone to the trouble to come from Ergoth to here, it wasn’t reasonable that they would leave the road and go into hiding, just to go back where they came from.

Gran gazed westward, troubled and puzzled, to where the Kharolis Mountains climbed away into blue distance, range after range of rugged peaks. What was there for wizards? In the valleys and on the slopes there were the fields and settlements of the Neidar, and beyond them the widely scattered Einar. For a hundred miles or so, there were dwarven habitations scattered here and there throughout the mountains. And beyond that was the wilderness. The Bigtooth range lay there, and beyond it the Anviltops, and beyond them … who knew what lay beyond? There was nothing but more mountains.

Gran turned slowly, his gaze swinging southward. Beyond the Redrock Peaks, hazy with distance, stood the mighty eminence of Sky’s End, thrusting a thousand feet above any other prominence. And beyond Sky’s End was Thorbardin. The Neidar’s eyes narrowed. What would humans seek in dwarven lands? What did humans always seem to seek? Conquest. And where would one go if one intended to conquer the dwarven lands? Thorbardin. There, deep beneath the surface of Cloudseeker Mountain, was the stronghold of the dwarves.

Had the wizards aimed for Thorbardin? But why? Even if they knew of the place, they would never be allowed inside. Southgate, on the far side facing the Thunder Peaks and the Daergar mines there, was complete now, with a massive, steel-sheathed gate that could be closed at a moment’s notice – a gate that was impregnable. Not even magic could penetrate Southgate. Not even dragons, or the mightiest armies, could ever breach it.

Northgate, facing Sky’s End and the broken lands bordering Ergoth, did not yet have its gate in place, but it, too, was heavily guarded. At the first sign of trouble, thousands of armed dwarves would mount a defense in the great shaft of Anvil’s Echo. Not even magicians would be able to negotiate the suspended bridge from one end to the other of that great chamber, with sling-stones, javelins, and bolts coming at them from the murder holes which lined the way.

Then a memory struck Gran Stonemill, and his jaws clenched. There was another way in! Though it had been sealed for nine decades, the old Daewar tunnel beneath Sky’s End was still there, unused and practically forgotten. Delved by the gold-molders a hundred years ago, straight through Sky’s End into the subterranean caverns beneath Cloudseeker, the tunnel had been the means by which the caverns which now were Thorbardin had first been occupied.

It was sealed. But could the seals stand against magic spells?

Gran practically flew down the sentinel ladder and signaled to his Neidar. When they were assembled, he divided them into five squads of ten each. Four would take up the search for the wizards where the road guards had stopped. Twelve miles west of the Road of Passage, they would form a cordon and sweep westward, searching. The fifth squadron he would take himself, directly south to Thorbardin, to see the Council of Thanes. It was time to speak of magic and to take another look at the old, original entrance to the undermountain fortress.

*

Megistal stood alone atop the escarpment of Sheercliff as another sunrise announced itself above the mountain peaks. Standing at the very edge of a precipitous, hundred-foot drop, the wizard sighed and shook his head in annoyance, ignoring the bickering of his two companions some distance behind him. He was not standing there, gazing eastward, for the sake of the view. He was standing there because it was the surest place to keep his back turned to the other two wizards who were scurrying about and throwing angry words at each other.

Just at the moment, Megistal wanted nothing at all to do with either of them. He was exasperated with them both, and so angry that he wasn’t sure what he would do if they crossed his vision right now. He was afraid he might lose his self-control and hit them both with a spell so terrible that he would regret it. But he knew he would not. The deep, secret magics granted to him and only a few others by the Scions were not for selfish use, even in exasperation. Still, he growled at the very thought of Tantas and Sigamon.

Not only had they wasted an entire, exhausting day of surveying this blasted mesa, they had virtually wiped out the work that had been done before. Megistal didn’t know which of them he blamed more, the lanky, self-righteous Sigamon or the scuttling, sneering Tantas.

Tantas had started it, of course. In a simple survey spell with his dark stones, he had added something extra. He just couldn’t resist showing off his destructive powers, it seemed, and the spell had gotten entirely out of hand. Instead of simply marking a survey point with his lightning, the dark wizard had started a grass fire which swept across great segments of the flat mesa top, propelled by mountain winds.

And then Sigamon, instead of simply dousing the fire with a rain spell, had decided to show off his own powers, and the resulting, sudden ice storm had blinded them all for long minutes while the fires continued to burn unchecked. Scorched and shivering, Megistal had finally managed to put an end to the runaway results of the magics by cloaking the entire mesa in a dense downpour of rain.

But the damage was done. At least half of the survey stakes they had worked so long to set, stakes that marked the closing area of the precise point they had finally found, were either burned away or blown up by quick-frost. The Stone of Threes was in place, but all of the lines of power would have to be restaked if there was ever to be a Tower of High Sorcery in this part of Ansalon.

“I can’t believe it,” Megistal muttered to himself as the other two wandered around trying to relocate some of the test points so laboriously established. The wizard was beginning to wonder if the tower was worth the aggravation.

All that had occurred two days ago, and Megistal still couldn’t bring himself to speak a civil word to the other wizards. But now another day was dawning, and they had dawdled enough. They had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done by itself.

He started to turn away from the cliff’s edge, then paused as movement caught his eye. High above, first sunlight glinted on something moving. He raised his eyes, then sighed. It was only a bird, a hawk of some kind, soaring high above. He had the impression that it was a large bird, but it was hard to tell. He watched it for a moment, then lowered his gaze and tensed. Other movement was visible now, far off but clear. On the slopes beyond the canyons that footed Sheercliff, three specks moved, coming toward him. He squinted, shading his eyes, then spread his arms, raised them, and lowered them, describing an arc. He stepped back from the cliff’s edge, muttered an incantation, and the arc he had made became visible, a ring of shimmering gray like a circle of fog. Again Megistal muttered, and within the ring shapes became clear: three armed, mounted dwarves, magnified as though seen through a lens. They appeared to be only a hundred feet away, instead of the span of miles where they appeared as only specks.

Sigamon and Tantas had ceased their bickering and came to join him. “Ah, we have company,” Tantas rasped. “Dwarves, I believe.”

“Most likely you attracted them with your cursed fire,” Sigamon said haughtily.

“Or you with your swirling ice,” Tantas growled. “Well, we have no time for dwarves right now.” He raised his right arm and started to chant a spell, but Megistal stopped him, grabbing his wrist.

“What are you doing?” the red wizard hissed.

“I’m going to kill them.” Tantas shook free. “Get out of my way.”

“Kill them?” Sigamon stared at the hunched wizard with the black hat. “Why kill them? They are of no consequence.”

“But they’re coming this way,” Tantas pointed out. “If they find us, they might signal for others to come. That could delay us no end.”

“There is that.” Sigamon shrugged. “Well, be merciful about it then. I do not share your penchant for causing pain … unless, of course, it is for a worthy cause.”

“Stop it, both of you!” Megistal snapped. “There is no reason to kill those dwarves. I shall simply give them an illusion to lead them away.”

Without waiting for argument, the red wizard raised a hand, pointed, and muttered, “Oviat devis duon! Chapak!” In the viewing ring, the three dwarves blinked, drew rein, and turned their heads this way and that in obvious confusion. One of them lifted a mesh faceplate, squinted, and rubbed a hand across his eyes, then pointed off to the right, his beard twitching as he spoke to the others. The gold-bearded one beside him shrugged and nodded, but the third one – the largest one – shook his head. He gestured, indicating his horse and theirs, and lifted his reins, saying something. Then he pointed straight ahead.

“Blast!” Megistal said. “He knows it is an illusion. But how? I used first-order magic.”

“Illusion!” Tantas scoffed. “Soft magic!”

“Interesting,” Sigamon murmured, stepping closer to the view ring. “Look at him, how he squints. It is as though he sees your illusion, but also sees through it. See, he is showing the others. Maybe you should rethink your spells, Megistal. This one lacks potency.”

The big dwarf flicked his reins and rode straight ahead, and the others followed him. After a few yards they all blinked, stared, and pointed.

“They’ve broken free of the spell,” Sigamon said. “They have no trouble seeing clearly.”

Megistal scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Have either of you ever used magic against dwarves before?”

“Only to shield ourselves in passage,” Sigamon admitted. “Why?”

“Dwarves hate magic, I understand,” Megistal said. “I’m just wondering if …”

Tantas ignored the other two. Again he raised his arm, brought it down, and hissed, “Dagat mordem! Chapak!”

Abruptly the viewing ring blazed with intense light, and out on the far slopes a ball of blue-white fire grew, engulfing the distant riders. It was gone as quickly as it came, but the scene in the ring was startlingly different. Where before there had been three riders coming down a lush slope, surrounded by low vegetation, now there was smoke, blowing ash, and the blackened forms of three fallen dwarves. The only things moving were three terrified horses, galloping away toward the east, and the lingering smoke that drifted on the wind.

“That settles that,” Tantas chuckled. “They are dead. There is nothing wrong with my spells.”

Megistal stared at the hunched wizard in disgust, then turned away. The viewing ring winked out.

“So you killed three dwarves,” Sigamon sneered. “Your spell was still faulty, though. Those horses didn’t seem injured at all. Only frightened.”

“Dumb animals,” Tantas rasped. “Magic sometimes doesn’t touch animals, remember? The Scions told us that.” He swung away, then turned back to snap, “I could have killed the horses, too, if I had wanted to try another spell. I could have dropped boulders on the brutes. Magic may not be real to them, but boulders are.”

“I don’t understand the big to-do,” carped Sigamon, “over three simple dwarves.”

Chapter 4

NORTHGATE

The Northgate entrance to Thorbardin, when completed, would be the mirror image of Southgate – a perfectly delved, iron-framed opening in a wall of solid granite that faced onto a wide walled ledge high on the mountainside of Cloudseeker Peak. The sheer granite wall itself was reinforced with an unseen mesh of iron bars drilled into the stone so that it could not be cracked or shattered by even the greatest force. The frame of the opening was polished iron, fourteen feet wide and two feet thick.

Running through the gatehouse behind the opening was a huge screw set in a threaded stone shaft lined with graphite and geared to a waterwheel drive. The screw itself, and its twin – nearly thirty miles away at Southgate – were the two largest single artifacts of solid steel ever produced in dwarven foundries … or in any foundries. Each contained a year’s production of iron, coke, and nickel from the Daergar’s best mines, and each had taken nine years to forge, mill, and polish into final shape. Just within the opening on the mountainside was a large, delved area that served as outer gatehouse. The great gate resting there now, ready to be mounted on the screw, was identical to the one in use at Southgate – a massive plug of metal-clad stone, grooved to ride on ranked steel rails set in floor, ceiling, and walls of the gateway. Once mounted, it would be closed by turning the screw to drive it into the opening.

When first planned, Thorbardin’s gates had been envisioned as hinged plugs, an effective closure developed by Daewar delvers in times long past. But as the great fortress grew, and the skills of Daewar, Theiwar, and Daergar blended with the crafts of the Hylar, many plans had been modified and improved. A hinged plug could be circumvented by intruders, given the time and the tools to work on it. A screw-driven plug, internally operated and driven flush into a sleeved opening, could not.

It had been the intention of the original architects of Thorbardin – many of whom still directed the thousands of tasks that went into the project – that the fortress be impregnable to outside attack. Within Thorbardin were the finest craftsmen, the greatest delvers and builders, and the best fortress-planners in the world, and being dwarves they were not adverse to hard work. With its gates in place and working, backed by the great defense passages called Anvil’s Echo – huge tunnels two hundred feet high, lined with murder holes and passable only by a narrow bridge suspended halfway up – Thorbardin would be difficult if not impossible to enter for anyone the dwarves decided to keep out.

Every dwarf above the age of first crafting was as skilled in the use of weapons as in the use of tools. It had become a staple of dwarven lore in Thorbardin – originated from old stories told by the Hylar – that the only basic difference between a tool and a weapon was in the using of it. A climbing javelin thrown at an enemy was a spear. A delving hammer swung at the skull of an enemy was a war hammer. A crafter’s axe cleaving an enemy shield was a battle-axe. A delver’s metal hat worn in combat was a helm, and a fending shield in battle was a fighting shield.

True, there were some weapons that had little use as tools. A bow was not as efficient as a sling for delivering small goods from level to level, a lance made a poor javelin, and swords were forged primarily as trade goods, to be bartered to the humans of the Ergothian orders for things more useful. Of all the dwarves of Thorbardin, only among the Hylar, with their background of human dealings, were there many who would choose a sword over a good hammer as personal armament. And even among the Hylar, the hammer was highly prized as both a tool and a weapon.

It was one of the differences that had developed over the years between the dwarves of Thorbardin and their outside cousins, the Neidar and the scattered Einar. The undermountain dwarves were known for their love of the hammer, while those outside usually favored the axe.

But whatever tool was at hand, weapons would always be ready to be turned instantly on any outsider trying to invade the fortress of Thorbardin.

As Quill Runebrand, keeper of scrolls, was fond of saying, “There isn’t a conceivable subject that all the people of Thorbardin would ever agree about, except one. Intruders are not welcome here. We might squabble over what day it is, or come to blows over whether there are really two moons or three, but we all agree on the defense of Thorbardin.”

Today, the keeper of scrolls was tagging after Willen Ironmaul as the chieftain of the Hylar, accompanied by his ten personal guards and several Thorbardin officials, toured the facilities of Northgate.

From the growing city of Hybardin, delved into a giant stalactite in the center of the underground realm, the group had gone by cable-boat across the northern Urkhan Sea to the piers of Theibardin, where Willen Ironmaul stopped off to visit briefly with the Theiwar chieftain, Slide Tolec. Then they had followed the Second Road to the newly expanded cavern that would one day be Thorbardin’s second Hall of Justice – the South Hall was becoming so busy these days, with the expansion of a boisterous and quarrelsome population, that a North Hall would be needed soon – and from there northward to Northgate, stopping for a quick look at the great, sheer-sided pit that the delvemaster ironically called the “Shame of Reorx.” It was to have been a magma pit, like the Shaft of Reorx now being completed near Southgate, but here it had not worked.

“One of our failures,” Shaft Redstone said sadly as the group assembled at the edge of the great hole that fell away into darkness below. “Six hundred feet straight down, through solid rock, and there is nothing down there except more solid rock. No steam vents, no fissures, not even a rising of temperatures. A miscalculation, pure and simple. Beneath Southgate there is ignitable magma, so we assumed there would be some here as well. We were wrong.”

“Too bad,” Willen Ironmaul sympathized. “It’s a nice hole, though.”

“Two years of work.” The delvemaster nodded, then shrugged. “Oh, well, we’ll find a use for it. If it won’t feed smelters, maybe we can use it to store grain or something.”

The area around the pit was well lighted, better so than most of the road, because of a large shaft leading to the surface of the mountain slope. It had been intended to fit the shaft with lenses, like the one near Southgate, so that sunlight could be funneled in to ignite the quiescent magma when it was found. Now, though, dwarven workmen thronged above, installing a sun-tunnel in the shaft. If there was no magma to power, at least the hole could provide daylight.

It was the way much of Thorbardin was lighted. Before the sun-tunnels, the great caverns had been dim places, lit only by natural strata of clear and smoky quartz that ran up through the mountain’s heart. The sun-tunnels, created by the craft of Hylar glaziers – and with great banks of mirrors from their shops – were now located in most parts of Thorbardin, providing good light where it was wanted. Only at night – except in those parts of Thorbardin that belonged to the dark-seeking Daergar – were lamps needed to light the fortress.

From Shaft Redstone’s pit it was only a few hundred yards along a wide, high passage to the sprawling, bustling subterranean village of Gatekeep, a three-level series of delvings hollowed out mostly by Daewar delvers and shored and partitioned by Hylar stonemasons. Shops, craft stalls, and vendor tables lined the main road here, and beyond them were the cubicle-homes of several thousand dwarves – guards and their families, tunnel traders, craftsmen, and others. In recent years, the two portal communities, Gateway to the south and Gatekeep to the north, had grown to be cities in their own right, rivaling in size the original seven cities of Thorbardin, clustered around the subterranean Sea of Urkhan. It was temporary growth, though. Now that Southgate was completed, Gateway was beginning to shrink again. Gatekeep would do the same when Northgate was done, as the builders and their families began to move back to the cities. The Council of Thanes already had plans for the delvings which would be abandoned near the gates. They would be converted into storage for the grains, timber, fibers, smoked meat, furs, and finery accumulated by trade with those in the outside realms and with the humans of Ergoth.

Beyond Gatekeep, three tunnels led to Anvil’s Echo and the great gate. Tunnels from the upper and lower levels led to the corridors of defense above and around Anvil’s Echo. The central tunnel led into the great bridge chamber itself, emerging on the long, suspended bridge that crossed it from one end to the other.

The place was safe now, and quiet as the procession walked along the bridge, but the members of the little group were aware of the eyes watching them from hundreds of holes, and Willen Ironmaul felt a chill as he thought what this passage would be like for anyone trying to invade Thorbardin.

The gatehouse and surrounding delves bustled with activity. Crafters were doing final fittings on the intricate gear mechanisms that would drive the gate-screw, and metalsmiths were fitting pins and sockets for the final installation of the gate itself.

The group of dwarves chatted with some of the people working there, then crouched to work their way through the narrow housings alongside the great screw, to the gate itself, beyond which lay the outside world.

Little light came through the gate. It was complete, but not open. Temporary stone pillars had been set across its outer rim, leaving only a small door. When the gate was in place, the pillars would be used as supports for sentinel towers on the walled ledge beyond.

The plug itself stood against a wall, just beyond the screw, and the dwarves spread out to wander around it, peeking and peering. Thirty feet high, sixty feet wide, and almost eight feet thick, the thing was cut and shaped from solid stone, drill-reinforced, and was entirely sheathed in metal. The inside face of it was of bronze, the serrated rims and the ring-socket for the great drive screw were filed iron, and the outside face was of thick, polished steel.

It was exactly like the plug at Southgate.

Very soon, it would be in place and usable. Then, Thorbardin would be impregnable. Willen Ironmaul strode along the length of the huge device, followed closely by the Ten, his personal escort. He paused now and then to measure a seam or taste the metal, nodding. “Perfect,” he muttered. “And the drive reservoirs?”

“Filled,” Talc Bendiron said. The tapwarden pointed upward, indicating the sheathed stone pipes that descended like great columns from the ceiling to the cut stone housing of the waterwheel. Above, two hundred feet away, was a separate, enclosed cavern filled with water from the sinkhole lake atop Cloudseeker. Valves were in place to release the water when required, and when the water flowed the great screw would turn, riding forward in its rings with tremendous, implacable force. Once begun, nothing short of the plug sealing itself into its socket would stop it.

Beyond the temporary gate, distant trumpets sounded, and a few moments later an armored dwarf hurried down a ladder nearby, saluted the visiting dignitaries, and turned to his watch captain. “Outside parties coming in,” he said. “The sentinels say the nearest group is Mace Hammerstand and his guards, returning from the west. A second party is just rounding Sky’s End, still too far away to identify, though the sentinel believes they are Neidar.”

Quill Runebrand turned to Willen Ironmaul. “It was Mace Hammerstand that your son Damon went out with, Sire?”

“It was.” The Hylar chieftain nodded. “And I’ll be … his mother will be glad when he is back. She tends to worry.”

“I’ll be glad to hear Mace’s report,” Cable Graypath noted.

Beyond the screw housing, there was a clatter and the sound of angry voices. A high, quavering cry rose above them. “Stand back!” that voice demanded. “Rust and corrosion! If you people would watch where you’re going, there’d be fewer accidents around here!”

“You old menace!” another voice roared. “Look what you’ve done to my load! By Reorx’s red rust, it’ll take me an hour to pick up all these pins!”

“Menace?” the first voice shouted, then sank to an angry growl. “Menace, he calls me. Menace! Fool who can’t even stand aside for buckets coming through, and he calls me a menace! Moondust!” The voices died to grumblings and a guard – one of the Ten – scurried past the screw housing, then returned, grinning through his beard.

“What happened?” Willen asked.

“Nothing much,” the guard said. “It’s just some oldster. He and a pinsetter had a collision back there.”

Behind him, the quavery voice rose again. “You, metal-hide! Stand aside! You’re blocking the way!”

The guard stepped aside, and an ancient dwarf backed through the narrow opening, hauling a cartload of buckets with a rope. Well into the gateway he turned a silver-maned head and leveled an angry glare at all and sundry. “Well, the least somebody could do is open that door for me!” he grumbled. “You can see I have my hands full.”

A gateman started toward the little temporary door, but Willen Ironmaul was nearest it and waved the workman aside. “I agree, grandfather,” he said. “A person with his hands full deserves to have doors opened for him. What do you have there?”

The old dwarf glared at the chieftain of the Hylar, then shrugged. “Buckets of stuff,” he said at last. “I intend to mix them all together to see what happens. But, of course, I can’t do it inside Thorbardin. It’s getting so a person can’t do anything around here without somebody objecting.”

“What kind of stuff?” Willen wondered, raising his head to look into the buckets. They were filled with various substances, some black, some green, some yellow, and some of no describable color.

“Elements,” the ancient growled. “Brimstone, soot, leavened ash … What business is it of yours, what kind of stuff? It’s my experiment, not yours! Who are you, anyway?”

“Mind your manners, old one!” someone reprimanded. “This is Willen Ironmaul, the chieftain of the Hylar.”

“Oh,” the oldster growled. “One of those. I don’t deal with Hylar. I live in Daebardin … though I may move out if Olim Goldbuckle doesn’t apologize soon.” He turned back to his rope. “Well, if you intend to open the door for me, do it! I don’t have all day!”

Hiding a grin, the high chieftain of the Hylar bowed, stepped back, and pushed the door between the pillars open. Grumbling and puffing, the old dwarf backed through it, pulling his cartload of buckets after him. Out on the wide parapet he turned east and disappeared toward the canted slopes beyond the sentinel towers.

Willen closed the door. “Who was that?” he asked.

Several of those around him shrugged and shook their heads. Bardion Ledge frowned thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. “Pack Lodestone,” he said. “I knew he looked familiar. He’s the one the Daewar prince ordered out of Thorbardin.”

“Ordered out?” Willen raised a brow.

“Oh, not permanently,” Bardion amended. “It’s just that he can’t experiment with his elements inside anymore. The prince has ordered that he has to go outside to make his mixtures.”

“I remember.” Talc Bendiron nodded. “Pack Lodestone. He’s the one who made the awful smell a month or so ago.”

“That’s him,” Bardion said. “Olim told me about that. The old fellow mixed up some noxious potions and set fire to them in the concourse in Daebardin. Half the city stank of rotten eggs for a week.”

“Why did he do that?” Willen wondered.

Bardion shrugged again. “Olim said he just wanted to see if his mixture would burn. Something about trying to invent a controllable fuel for the tinsmith forges, so he can get rich.”

“A tinkerer.” Barek Stone grinned. “Does he think he’s a gnome?”

“Olim said Pack Lodestone is nearly three hundred years old,” Bardion said. “At that age, there’s no telling what he thinks he is.”

Willen Ironmaul shook his head and returned to business. “I’ll stamp my seal on this project,” he told those around him. “I’m sure the rest of the council will, too. This is excellent work.” He turned to the tower guard. “When will the Roving Guard arrive?”

“A few hours, Sire,” the guard said. “They are on the climb-path now, coming toward this gate.”

“Mace will want to report to the council,” Willen said. “We had better get back to the cities and send runners to notify the chieftains.”

He was just heading for the screw housing when a tremendous roar came from beyond the portal, rattling the little door in its pillars. He and the rest turned, hurried to the door, and crowded out onto the ledge, the Ten drawing their blades.

To the east, on the slope beyond the sentinel tower where the approach to Northgate ended, a huge cloud of white smoke roiled upward, just beginning to spread on the winds. And out of the cloud stalked a black creature pulling a scorched cart on a rope. Pack Lodestone was covered with soot from head to toe. His disheveled, snowy hair and beard were black with it, and even at this distance they could hear his irate voice quavering. “Rust and corruption! That will never do! No tinsmith would put that in his forge! Now I’ll have to start all over again.”

The crowd on the ledge parted to let him pass, and he grumbled all the way through the door and beyond, his voice fading as he disappeared past the housed gate-screw.

“I believe Olim Goldbuckle made a very wise decision,” Willen Ironmaul noted. “What was that? Magic?”

“Certainly not!” Bardion Ledge assured him. “Pack may be crazy as a tractor worm, but he would no more indulge in magic than you or I.”

“Well, whatever he did indulge in, it certainly was noisy.”

“And smelly,” someone said. Noses wrinkled as the errant wind brought a bit of smoke among them. “That smells exactly like rotten eggs!”

Chapter 5

REALM OF THE THANES

Because of the sheer size of underground Thorbardin, stretching nearly thirty miles from north to south, the assembling of a Council of Thanes took time. A minimum of three days – and more often five or six – was required for the formal, ceremonial assembly of the council members in the Great Hall of Audience. It was a cumbersome, tedious procedure to assemble the Council of Thanes. This time, the council’s purpose was to hear the reports of Mace Hammerstand and the Neidar, Gran Stonemill, although within hours of their arrival at Northgate almost everyone in Thorbardin knew what they had come to report.

Something berserk, something elementally evil, was roaming the mountains, laying waste to scattered villages, killing everyone and everything in its path. Cale Greeneye and ten Neidar were on the track of the thing, but no one yet knew what it was or where it came from. It was a thing as big as a dragon that came in darkness, cloaked in mists. As big as a dragon, but – Mace Hammerstand and the rest who had gone to Windhollow all agreed – probably not a dragon. There was no sign that magic of any kind had been used, and dragons were fond of magic.

Further, Damon Omenborn had taken it upon himself to backtrack the beast westward. He had gone with two Guard volunteers and had not reported back. Mace was becoming increasingly worried.

And, finally, Gran Stonemill had reports of human magic-users running loose in dwarven territory, and a concern about Thorbardin’s safety, because of some old, unused tunnel that most people had long since forgotten about.

It was Gran Stonemill’s concern that prompted the unprecedented decision by Olim Goldbuckle, prince of the Daewar, and Willen Ironmaul, chieftain of the Hylar, to forgo the formal meeting of the thanes and take charge of the situation themselves. The threat Gran Stonemill suggested, if it were true, was unprecedented. In all the decades, Thorbardin had never been threatened by magic. In truth, hardly anyone had ever thought about such a possibility. But now there were wizards in Kal-Thax, and they were up to something.

Some of the Hylar had seen magic used in combat a long time ago, and the memories were frightening.

Olim Goldbuckle agreed. “There just isn’t time to convene the thanes,” the old Daewar prince announced to those around him on the Daebardin wharves. “I know that tunnel. It was my own delvers who made it.”

“And sealed it later,” the warden of ways reminded him. “Nothing has gone through that tunnel in nearly ninety years. It would take an army to get into the place, much less to come all the way here through it. There are seals practically every mile of its length.”

“It is sealed, yes,” Olim agreed, fierce blue eyes blazing in a face as weathered as old leather and framed by hair and beard that still held streaks of gold among the silver. “Sealed, but not against magic. Those seals don’t have the craft that has gone into the gates. We didn’t have such craft then, and who knows what a magic-user” — he shuddered in revulsion — “can do against simple barriers?”

A sizable crowd had grown on the piers and landings of the wharf complex, people from all over Thorbardin who had heard the rumors and knew that some of the leaders would be there, summoning the Thanes to formal council.

Adding to the crowd were long lines of porters, carrying bales of goods from the busy forges for transport to Southgate. For months, every forge in Daebardin and Theibardin had been busy turning out swords, shields, maces, and helms. Bell Brightluster, the warden of trade, had accepted the largest order for arms ever approved for trade to humans. No one knew why there was this sudden requirement for arms in southern Ergoth, but Bell Brightluster had a pledge and a rumor. The pledge was from the Orders of Chivalry of Ergoth, that none of these armaments would be used against the dwarves. The rumor was that someone in Xak Tsaroth – someone of whom the knights approved – would be the recipient of the goods.

Now there was a babble of voices all around, and hundreds of dwarves crowded closer to hear.

But Quill Runebrand, keeper of the scrolls, stood looking aghast, first at Olim Goldbuckle and then at Willen Ironmaul. “But you can’t …” he started, then cleared his throat. “You can’t just decide what will be done for all of Thorbardin, as you might for your own clans. That isn’t how it is done. The Covenant of the Forge very clearly states that all matters of importance must be decided by the assembled leaders of all the thanes, in council.”

“We haven’t decided anything yet, Quill,” Willen reminded him, “except that we may have an emergency on our hands and that there isn’t time to go through the procedures of a council.”

“But that’s like … like taking it upon yourselves to lead Thorbardin!” Quill insisted. “Two chieftains can’t do that.”

“In an emergency,” Willen said stonily, “even two leaders are too many. It’s better if there is only one.”

Again Quill stared at his chieftain. “But then we’d have a king!”

“We’ll have no kings,” Olim Goldbuckle snapped. “We’ve always opposed kings.”

Barek Stone, captain general of forces, had been with the Hylar chief on his tour of Northgate, and was still present. He stepped forward now, bumping the fidgeting loremaster aside. “I’ll follow either of you,” he told Olim and Willen. “But not both. A command cannot have two masters.”

“You aren’t supposed to follow anybody, Barek!” Quill shouted. “You answer to the entire council, not to any one thane.”

Barek ignored him. “If mages find a way in here,” he told the two leaders, “there won’t be any council or anything for a council to govern. I have already commanded Gem Bluesleeve to place the elite guard in the north warren where the tunnel emerges. Mace Hammerstand will send the best units of his Roving Guard to the old citadel on Sky’s End, where it begins. Now I stand ready to take orders as to what we are to do there. From somebody!”

“They’re talking about disbanding the Council of Thanes!” People in the growing crowd spread the word.

“They’re talking about giving rule of us all to a king!”

“What king?” The question spread through the crowd. “A king from which thane?”

“Probably the Hylar,” some suggested. “They’re usually the best soldiers.”

“Soldier or not, I won’t bend the knee to any uppity Hylar!” many voices echoed.

“Well, certainly not a Daewar!” a burly, broad-shouldered Theiwar blurted. “I’ll worship lead before I proclaim any gold-molder as my sovereign.” He glanced around, then, as several Daewar blades and hammers in his vicinity were raised. “Hold on, now.” He raised his hands. “I’ve got as much right to my opinion as anybody else.”

“Not in Daebardin, you haven’t, cliff-hanger,” a Daewar delver sneered. “If there’s going to be a king here, I’ll support Olim Goldbuckle for the throne.”

“I’m going to see what Slide Tolec has to say about this,” another Theiwar snapped, turning away.

Willen Ironmaul heard the comment and shouted, “You there! Your chieftain should be on his way here right now. I sent word to all the chieftains as soon as I heard Gran’s report.”

“Well, in that case there will be a meeting of the thanes,” someone else in the crowd pointed out. “So what’s all the argument about?”

Willen Ironmaul sighed, glanced at Olim Goldbuckle and shrugged. “He’s right,” he said. “There will be a meeting.”

Again Quill Runebrand pushed his way to the front, his eyes blazing. “A meeting isn’t a council!” he hissed. “We don’t do business that way. To assemble the council, first there must be a general call, and bonded runners must carry the seals to all the thanes. … Well, all but the Aghar, since they aren’t easily found. Then the points of question must be enscrolled and read by criers in all the concourses, and the council must assemble in the Hall of Audience so everybody who wants to can …”

A powerful hand closed on Quill’s neck, and he was lifted and turned to stare into the cold eyes of Barek Stone. “With all due respect,” the captain general snarled, “shut up and stay out of the way. We have a situation here.”

“Indeed we do,” Olim Goldbuckle looked around thoughtfully at the growing crowd of dwarves on his wharf. There were thousands of them present now, and more coming. He turned to Barek Stone. “Turn the loremaster loose, Barek,” he said.

When the seething keeper of scrolls was again standing on his own feet, Olim asked him, “You know the procedures by heart, I take it?”

“I certainly do!” Quill nodded. “It’s my job.”

“Then you certainly know the emergency clause in the Covenant, don’t you?”

“Of course. It says that … oh,” Quill stammered, blinking. “Oh, yes. There is the emergency clause.”

“And what does the emergency clause say?”

“It just says that in case of emergency the formalities can be dispensed with, and whatever chieftains can get together will decide what to do.”

“Exactly.” The prince of the Daewar nodded. “And we will do that now.” He pointed. Out on the waters, a cable-boat was cutting a broad wake as boatmen hauled at their winches. In the bow was a large group of masked Daergar, with Vog Ironface at the forefront.

“That makes three,” Willen noted. “And Slide is on his way.”

“I’m here,” a deep voice called. The crowds to the north parted as a company of Theiwar marched forward, led by Slide Tolec.

“Four,” Willen Ironmaul counted. “Cale Greeneye is out, searching for that beast-thing, so the Neidar …”

“Cale put me in charge,” Gran Stonemill offered. “I can speak for the Neidar if I must.”

“Five.” Willen nodded. “How about Pakka Trune?”

“He and some other Klar are right behind us,” the Theiwar chieftain said. “They’ll be here soon.”

“Six,” the Hylar said. “Does anyone know where what’s-his-name is? The Aghar Highbulp?”

“Probably asleep or lost,” someone sneered.

“Just the First.” Quill reminded his chieftain of the name of the gully dwarf leader.

“And one of him is enough,” someone nearby said. “If he doesn’t keep his people out of my root cellar, I’m going to start throwing rocks at them on sight.”

“Well, we won’t wait for him,” Olim said. “When Pakka Trune gets here we’ll meet … ah, over there will do. Where the awnings are.”

“Good!” someone nearby snapped. “Then we can have a few decisions.”

“About what?” someone else wanted to know. “About who’s to be king?”

“No kings!” a hundred voices clamored, as others around them chimed in. “It better not be a Theiwar!” … “I won’t stand for a Daergar king!” … “No Daewar!” … “Why would I want a Hylar king? I’m Theiwar!” … “I’ll follow none but a Daergar.”

Slide Tolec had reached the other chieftains. Now the Theiwar gazed around, frowning. “We need a bit of wisdom here,” he said.

“We may need a miracle,” Barek Stone offered. “If these people can’t agree on anything, who is going to direct us if it turns out we really are in trouble?”

“You have guards in place on the tunnel, Barek,” Willen Ironmaul said. “Is it secure?”

“For the moment, yes.” The captain general nodded. “But if it is found by mages … well, we don’t know what mages can do.”

“If action is needed, Olim can direct it.”

“Why me?” the Daewar prince snapped. “Why not you? Or Slide? Or …”

“Don’t look at me,” Pakka Trune growled as he stepped up to take his place among the assembled leaders. “You know my people. I can barely control them, much less all of Thorbardin.”

“Well, then, why not Vog Ironface?” Olim pointed at the Daergar chieftain, just now pushing his way through the crowd.

“Why not me, what?” the Daergar demanded, his voice hollow behind his slitted iron mask.

“They’re trying to choose a king,” a frowning dwarf with twin cudgels snapped.

“We are not!” Olim Goldbuckle roared. “No kings! I’ve heard enough about kings!”

“Then what are you trying to do?” several nearby dwarves demanded.

“We’re trying to have an emergency meeting of the council,” Willen Ironmaul shouted angrily. Behind him, the Ten drew their weapons and spread to face the crowd in all directions.

“Who’s calling the meeting?” Quill Runebrand asked, getting out his quills and his paper.

“You heard the report first, Willen,” Olim suggested.

“You’re senior,” Willen snapped.

“Oh, all right! I, Olim Goldbuckle, prince of Thane Daewar, do hereby summon the Council of Thanes to emergency session!”

“To consider what?” Quill asked, his steel nib scratching away busily.

“Questions of state!” Olim roared.

“Of defense,” Willen reminded him.

“Reorx!” Barek Stone muttered.

Far in the distance, in the direction of the Warren Road, trumpets sounded, echoed by others nearer, then by others nearer still. The crowd went silent, and Barek Stone listened intently. His face went pale behind his beard.

“A new report,” he told the assembled chieftains. “Those three human wizards that escaped the Road of Passage …”

“What about them?” Willen asked. “Are they found?”

“No, they haven’t been found. But there aren’t just three anymore. Riders at the Ergoth border say that more humans entered the road two days ago, and now they can’t be found. They’ve disappeared.”

“More wizards?” Olim Goldbuckle grimaced. “How many?”

“Many,” Mace said. “Maybe a hundred or more.”

*

Cale Greeneye and his Neidar volunteers had located a trail within a few miles of Windhollow. It was the trail of a creature, and the trace itself told them something of what had made it. The thing was big, and it was heavy. Huge talons had gouged deep into the soil in some places, and had crushed small stones in others. It walked on two feet, and it had a long, twitching tail.

And sometimes, instead of walking, it flew. It had wings – scrapes on stone outcroppings said that the wings were barbed with talons of their own – and could fly, but it seemed never to fly very far. A few hundred yards here, to cross a chasm, a dozen yards or so there, to leap a cleft. Elsewhere the tracks led to the lip of a cliff and began again below as though the thing had soared downward, but not far out.

In one place, where it had flown over a thicket of scrub oak, the tops of trees were broken where it had passed.

“Either it prefers not to fly, or it isn’t very good at it,” Cale told his followers. “It doesn’t seek the heights, or spend much time on the wing.”

Eventually, they found a witness. An Einar herder, far out in search of stray goats, had been walking along the bottom of a crevice in late evening when he happened to look up and see something unusual – something large and nebulous – cross a clearing nearby.

He had seen it only briefly. “It was like a fog bank drifting by,” he told them. “Except that there was something inside the fog. I could hardly see it. Then a wind came, and for a moment the mists were swept back. I saw it then. It was gray, like steel. Not bright like Daewar steel, but darker, like Daergar blades. And it was big. It looked like a big lizard, but shaped more like a … well, like a skinny turkey except that its head and neck were larger, and thrust forward, not up. Two legs, and two … something like wings. And it had a great, long tail that shimmered like wet iron.”

“How big was it?” Cale asked the herder.

“About like this.” The dwarf paced off a distance of more than thirty feet. “Best I could tell, anyway. Maybe even bigger. It was hard to see, except when the fog was blown aside.”

“Was there other fog?”

“No, it was a clear evening. But there was fog around that thing. It wore fog the way I’d wear a fine cloak – if I had such a useless thing as a fine cloak. The fog went with it, and covered it.”

“What did you do?”

“Do?” The herder squinted at him. “I did what anybody would. I hid until it was gone.”

“Did you find your lost goats?” Crag Ironface asked.

“Three.” The herder frowned. “Or maybe four. Something had found them first, and there wasn’t enough left of them to tell.”

“Don’t look for the rest,” Cale told him. “Go home and warn your people. The thing you saw has wiped out three villages so far. Be on your guard, and if you see fog, scatter and hide.”

“Out here, I hide,” the herder said stubbornly. “If a thing like that comes to my home, I fight.”

“They fought at those villages, too,” Cale said, bleak-eyed. “They fought, and they died just like your goats died.”

“And still you Neidar are seeking it? What will you do when you find it?”

“I don’t know,” Cale admitted. “Kill it, if we can.”

For another day, the Neidar tracked the fog-thing. Then, in a deep hollow, as dusk shadows darkened, the thing found them.

The first warning came when Cale glanced up from the faint trail and noticed a mist settling over the hollow. Above, the sky was clear, but suddenly they were surrounded by deep mist turning to fog.

“Hist!” He raised a hand and reined in. “The thing is here … somewhere. Keep your eyes open. Stay together.”

Their eyes strained as they backed their horses into a tight group. Weapons drawn, they scanned the dimming spaces around them. For long moments, they saw nothing. Suddenly dense fog swirled forward out of dark shadows, a cold, rolling fog that seemed to spring at them, as though to engulf them.

“Retreat!” Cale shouted. “Stay away from the fog!”

They backed their horses away, watching, then turned and ran as the fog bank surged toward them. Just behind them they heard a sound that started as the hissing of wind, then grew to a shriek of rage.

“Spread and hold!” Cale commanded. Eleven horses pivoted and planted solid feet. In their saddles eleven dwarves leaned forward, shields up and weapons raised.

For an instant, the rolling mass of fog seemed to hesitate, as though considering the semicircle of dwarves. Abruptly, the shriek came again, this time a deep, rumbling roar that echoed from the hillsides. With the roar came a surge of fog as though a high wind were behind it. Thick mist engulfed three of the dwarves; from within came the sounds of blows being struck and cries of pain. A dwarf screamed. A horse shrieked in pain, then another. The sounds became sounds of ripping and tearing, of crushing of armor and bone.

“Attack it!” Cale shouted, putting hard heels to his horse. Hooves thundered, and eight Neidar spread, circled, and charged into the blinding mist. Cale drove six yards into blindness, then twelve, and suddenly saw a dark form ahead. Reining his mount aside, he closed and swung a mighty cut with his axe. The blade rang as though against steel, and something very large whisked past him just above his head. He pivoted, followed, and swung again.

This time the blade encountered a softer hardness, like chain mesh, and something roared in anger. He heard other blows being struck, but could see nothing. Then the roar of rage grew louder, and he looked up. Above the low mist, something reared high, a huge head with daggerlike teeth turning this way and that. Cale and someone else – he could not see who – charged in directly under the towering beast, swinging at its underbelly. But again it was as though the blades encountered stone or steel.

The thing reared again, seemed to pause, then pounced, and Cale saw a wide, grasping thing that might have been a foot or a ridged wing with talons drop down upon the dwarf next to him. Bones crunched, blood-mist spewed in the fog, and dwarf and horse were both ripped apart in an instant.

From somewhere a great tail swept around, barely missing Cale and his horse. They backed away. It was no use. They were trying to fight something they could not even see. “Break and run!” he shouted. “Break free! Escape!”

As Cale cleared the mist, another rider was right behind him. He heard other hooves as well, going in another direction.

The fog bank swirled and roared, surging after them, then turned to pursue someone else. Halfway up the slope above the hollow, Cale slowed his horse, turned, and recognized Crag Ironface beside him. They looked back, and the fog was gone. Where it had been, Cale saw only shadows, but he heard the Daergar’s gasp of shock as his miner’s eyes saw what was there.

“Reorx!” Crag breathed. “I don’t know how many we lost, Cale. Dwarves … horses … There’s nothing whole down there. Only … only sundered pieces!”

By morning light they reassembled, those who were left. Cale Greeneye, Crag Ironface, and a Theiwar youth, Pounce Tambac, who was afoot. He had outrun the fog-thing, even though his horse had fallen and been caught by it.

Out of eleven armed and mounted Neidar, only three remained. Three dwarves and two horses.

“Do you think we hurt that thing at all?” Crag asked grimly.

“No,” Cale admitted. “No, I don’t think we even scratched it. We’ve paid a heavy price, and it is still out there, going where it will.”

“East.” Crag pointed. “East, toward Thorbardin.”

“A waste.” Pounce Tambac frowned. “All for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Cale said. “We know about the thing now. We know what it can do, and a little of what it can’t.”

“What can’t that thing do?” Pounce squinted at him.

“It doesn’t move rapidly,” Cale noted. “It’s agile, but it’s not very fast. Also, its wings aren’t really wings. They’re more like webbed claws. That’s why it doesn’t fly far or often … it can’t. And we know it can’t see through its own fog. Not very well, anyway. It had to rear above it to find us.”

“That’s all very well,” Pounce sighed. “But how do we kill it?”

“I don’t know,” Cale admitted. “We’ll just have to think of something.”

“Are we going after it again?” Crag asked. “The three of us?”

“No. That’s no use. We’ll have to get help.”

Chapter 6

THE SHADOWS OF THE ANVILTOPS

For a long time, all was still on the sloping meadow that led down toward the breaks beyond which stood Sheercliff. An oval area the size of a small village had been burned and scorched as though by instant fire. Within it, a few blackened brush-stumps thrust up from the ashes, and in its center lay three still, smoke-dark forms. As the sun sank beyond the Anviltops, one of the forms stirred, moaned, and stirred again. After a time it sat upright, solemn eyes blinking in a smoke-blackened face capped by a seared helmet and framed by wisps of what had once been a thick beard.

Damon Omenborn had no idea what had happened. One moment he and his two escorts had been riding down a long slope with Sheercliff looming a few miles ahead; the next moment there had been searing light and intense heat, and then nothing. His throat was parched, and the exposed skin on his face, arms, and legs felt as though he had crawled across a working forge.

Slowly, gritting his teeth, he got to his feet, turning at the sound of a moan nearby. Someone else was still alive. He knelt beside the fallen figure, wondering who it was, then saw the ruined mesh faceplate still clinging to its strap even though the dwarf’s helmet had fallen away. “Tag,” he rasped, his voice as hoarse and rough as an anvil-crafter’s file. “Tag, wake up.”

The figure stirred, moaned, and muttered, “What happened? Did lightning hit us? Who … Damon? Are you hurt?”

“Not too much,” Damon said. “And you?”

“I’ve had better days,” the Theiwar allowed. He struggled to a sitting position, staring around through the mesh that had probably saved his light-sensitive eyes. “Where’s … where’s that grinning Daewar?”

“Copper,” Damon muttered. He stood and looked around, then ran to where the third body lay. He knelt over it, then stood, turning away. Copper Blueboot was dead, his chest armor crushed. If he had survived the fire, he had not survived the fall. It looked as though his horse had rolled on him. And there was no sign of their horses anywhere.

“Dead,” Damon said. “He’s dead, and all the horses are gone, along with our packs and most of our gear.” Wiping soot from his eyes, he looked at the sky and at the world around him. “How could it have been lightning?” he wondered. “There were no clouds.”

“I remember something else,” Tag Salan said, getting to his feet. “Just before … before whatever happened. It seemed as though the world turned around. We had been going west, and suddenly we were – we seemed to be – going south. What had been ahead was to our right.”

“But it wasn’t,” Damon corrected him. “It looked as though we had turned, but we hadn’t. And the terrain seemed odd. It didn’t look quite right, as though just beyond the turned-around view was another view, one that hadn’t changed.”

“That’s right.” Tag nodded. “I noticed that, too. And you insisted we go on, and when we did the turned-around view faded away, and things were as they had been. What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Damon admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He went and knelt again beside the body of Copper Blueboot. He closed the staring, lifeless eyes and crossed the Daewar’s arms over his mashed chest.

“Traveler,” the big Hylar murmured, “your travels are through. Everbardin opens its gates to you.”

Beside him, Tag Salan asked, “What was that?”

“Just something Hylar say.” Damon shrugged. “It comes from the old times, I guess, when some of us were Calnar, in a place far away.”

“He would want to be buried,” Tag said.

“Yes.” Damon stood again and prowled around the area, with Tag joining him. Not far from Copper’s body they found a few tools and a coil of hemp cable, probably thrown from a pack when the horses bolted. The tools, like the weapons and gear they carried on them, were scorched but usable – a stone chisel, a pick, and a prybar. Damon chose the chisel for himself and unslung his hammer and shield. He handed the pick to Tag. “Here, where he fell,” he said. “The stone is thin, and there are soft layers below where we can dig with our shields. “We’ll bury him here.”

They worked into the night, burying the Daewar youth, then shared the remaining water in Damon’s sling-pouch and sat down to rest. Suddenly Tag Salan pointed and jumped to his feet. “There!” he shouted. “There it is again.”

Damon stood, squinting. Moments passed, and a brief light blazed in the distance, atop the towering wall of Sheercliff. More moments passed, then there was another flash. After that, there was only darkness.

“Someone or something is up there,” Damon said. “Those are the same flashes we saw earlier. Three of them, like before, then nothing.”

“Three different colors,” Tag added. “I didn’t notice it before, but one flash – the first one – had a hint of red in it. The second was white, and the third more blue. Did you see that?”

“I couldn’t perceive a difference,” Damon admitted. “But then, your Theiwar eyes are better than mine after dark.” He paused. “Blue, you said? The third flash looked blue?”

“A little,” the Theiwar told him.

“Like the light that burned us,” Damon murmured. “In the instant that I saw it, it seemed blue.” Again they sat, and Damon said thoughtfully, “This is where that thing – the killing thing – must have come from. Somewhere over there. But those people in the village said nothing about flashes of light. I wonder what it is.”

“Back there, at Windhollow, your uncle set off with ten Neidar to search for the beast,” Tag said. “The rest of the Neidar went in another direction. Where were they going?”

“To the Road of Passage,” Damon said. “They’d been told about some human wizards getting off the road. But …” he paused, feeling a tingling in his scalp and spine. His gaze fixed on the far-off top of Sheercliff. “Wizards,” he hissed. “Magic! Do you suppose …?”

“Do you suppose that was magic that hit us, Damon?” Tag growled. “Somebody deliberately attacked us … with magic?”

“I’ve never seen magic.” Damon shrugged. “But it could have been. If it was, we’d better do something about whoever is using it.” In his voice was no sign of the anger that Tag felt, and the Theiwar wondered again what it would take to arouse the big Hylar’s ire.

“I guess it didn’t kill us,” Tag said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“If someone used magic on us, then whoever used it could see us. And they might see us again, out here on this open slope. How do you feel about night travel?”

“I like it better than you do,” the Theiwar reminded him. “Of course, I’m no Daergar, who can count footprints in a dark mine shaft, but I can see all right by moonlight.”

“Then I think we had better be on our way. By morning, we can be in those breaks below the cliff. We’ll rest then, with cover.”

*

Wide-eyed with terror, Willow Summercloud clung desperately to the little straps of Cawe’s harness as the great bird soared higher and higher into the sky. The harness was nothing more than tied loops of soft leather, fore and aft of the raptor’s wings, connected by a single strip of what seemed to be discarded linen, casually tied with knots that looked as though they would fail at any moment.

The first takeoff had nearly been a disaster. The kender girl, Shill, hadn’t bothered to explain to the dwarf how one stays on the back of a bird, and Cawe was no more than fifty feet above the ground when Willow’s booted feet slipped on slick feathers, and she fell past a huge wing, only saving herself by grasping and clinging to a huge, taloned toe underneath.

In the landing, she had been rolled, tumbled, and thoroughly aggravated. But she had finally agreed to try it one more time when Shill showed her how to sit just behind the great wings, using the linen strap as a handhold and her legs and feet as braces. Now Willow shook windblown hair out of her eyes, glanced downward, and wished that she had decided to walk. Below, the world was far away and tiny. Peaks and valleys looked like little furrows in poorly plowed fields, and what the dwarf knew to be tall trees on the lower slopes seemed nothing more than bits of brush.

“We’re too high!” she shouted, hearing the wind carry her words away behind her.

In front of her the little kender turned and said, “What?”

“We’re too high!” Willow repeated. “I don’t like it up here! You promised me that this bird would fly low and slow!”

“Oh.” Shill grinned. “Well, for Cawe, this is low and slow. He doesn’t fool around when it comes to flying.”

“I certainly hope not,” Willow breathed.

“Of course, if he decides to do flips and rolls and stunts like that, it gets kind of exciting. …”

“No!” Willow shrieked.

“What?”

“No flips and rolls! No stunts! This is bad enough.”

“I guess you’re not a frequent flier,” Shill decided. “Well, don’t worry, this is just a quick tour so you can see what those wizards have been doing. Oh, look!” She pointed downward, half-standing precariously on the shoulders of the soaring bird. “I see people down there, riding horses. Are those some more dwarves, do you think?”

Carefully clinging to the fragile strap, Willow leaned outward and looked down. A dizzying distance below, three little specks moved slowly down a wide slope.

“Well?” Shill insisted. “Are they dwarves?”

“Who can tell from up here?” Willow snapped. “Sit down before you fall!”

Shill looked puzzled for a moment, then sat. “I thought they might be somebody you know,” she said. “Dwarves know other dwarves, I suppose.”

“Sit still and hang on!” The rear knot in the linen strap slipped, and Willow grabbed it with her free hand. “Who in the world tied this … this thing?”

“I did,” Shill said happily. “Pretty neat, huh? When Cawe wanted me to go with him to look for a dwarf, I thought it would be a good idea. Of course, I didn’t have much to work with, but it turned out just fine. Isn’t this fun?”

Bracing herself, Willow quickly retied the knot, then grasped the linen again as Cawe banked to the left, still gaining altitude. The world below was getting smaller and smaller.

“That’s Sheercliff ahead.” The kender girl pointed. “It was named Sheercliff by dwarves. Dwarves aren’t all that imaginative. If it had been me, I’d have called it Verty-Go or Upson Downs or something fancy like that, but I guess Sheercliff is all right. I remember once, my mother caught a weasel, and I named it …”

Willow tried to ignore the kender’s prattling, squinting as she gazed at the miles-long cliff that stood like a huge wall of stone facing the eastward slopes. Behind its edge, to the west, were plateau lands sloping gently upward toward the still distant Anviltop Peaks. And on the plateau was an ugly black scar that looked as if it was half a mile across. “What’s that?” she asked.

Shill looked and shook her head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t there when we came by before. It looks like there’s been a fire.”

“It certainly does,” the dwarf girl agreed.

“Oh, look! There those people are. See? Right out there on the edge of the cliff. All three of them. They’re the ones who have been doing the flashings and the cracks and thunders and all that.”

Willow could barely see the three men so far below; they were just little specks on the very lip of the cliff. She squinted, then asked, “Do you suppose we could go down for a closer look?”

The kender trilled something in her bird-tongue, and the great bird answered – a single, deep-chested syllable.

“Cawe says no.” Shill shrugged. “He says those people are no friends of his, and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. He says that’s why you’re here. He wants you to figure out what to do about them.”

“He said all that?” Willow’s eyes widened.

“Well, not in so many words, but that’s what he meant.”

“Well, I haven’t the vaguest idea what to do about his wizards, and that’s not why I’m out here anyway. I’m looking for a thing that raided my village and killed almost everybody there.”

Shill turned bright, curious eyes on her passenger, and Willow noticed that the little kender was up again, shifting from one foot to the other as though dancing to the sound of Cawe’s wings.

“Stay still!” the dwarf demanded. “You’re making me nervous!” Willow turned away, then blinked as bright light flashed on a mountain slope far behind them.

Shill had seen it, too, and jumped up and down excitedly, precariously balanced on the back of the soaring bird. “See that?” she asked, pointing. “It’s those wizards. They’re doing it again.”

The flash was gone in an instant, but smoke rolled upward from where it had been.

At that moment, Cawe spread wide wings, tilted his glide, and headed downward. Shill’s feet went out from under her, and she plunged over the side. With a gasp, Willow let go of the linen strap, caught a toe under one of the body straps, and lunged. Her fingers closed around a small wrist, and she heaved backward, lifting the kender back onto the bird.

“I told you to sit down!” Willow shrilled.

“Wow!” Shill chirped. “That was exciting!” She crawled back to her place ahead of the dwarf and crouched there, her eyes shining.

The great bird had circled far past the crest of Sheercliff and now was circling downward, toward forested slopes above the plateau. Shill trilled, then turned back. “You said you wanted to get a closer look,” she said. “Cawe is going to let us off in those timbers, so we can do that.”

“Let us off?” Willow frowned. “I hope he intends to land first.”

“Oh, sure. He always lands. That’s where he lets me off when I watch the wizards. I’ve been there several times already. Of course, I try not to let them see me, because they don’t seem very friendly. But they leave interesting things lying around sometimes, that I guess they don’t want anymore. I have a chalice, and a blackstone shiny thing, and a pair of shoes that I don’t have the vaguest idea what to do with because they won’t fit anybody I know. Oh, and I found several carved sticks with little drawings and runes on them. They were just sticking up out of the ground here and there.”

Undisturbed by the chattering, fidgeting pair on his shoulders, Cawe braced great wings and aimed for a wooded cleft in the slopes above the plateau.

*

Many miles to the east of Sheercliff, late in the evening, a man trudged along the bank of a little mountain stream, heading generally eastward. He was tall, lithe, and muscular, with dark eyes above a full dark beard – eyes that seemed constantly on the move, missing very little of what was around him. The sword at his back, the rawhide shield at his shoulder, and the strung bow in his hand were always ready for use. He was an intruder in the dwarven lands, and he fully understood that to be caught by the reclusive dwarves, wandering in their territory, meant at the very least a quick expulsion from the land called Kal-Thax. At least expulsion, he reminded himself, but more likely death. The dwarves did not appreciate outsiders.

Still, Quist Redfeather had come, pledged to a mission that he detested, but nonetheless meant to complete. Too much hung in the balance for the Cobar to even consider failure.

“If any man can get past the borders of Kal-Thax,” the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth had told him, “I have no doubt that you are the man. And I have no doubt that, with your family in our, ah, tender custody pending your return, you will make every effort to succeed.”

The “mission” was simple, if not easy. The overlords of Xak Tsaroth had long coveted the wealth of the dwarven clans inhabiting the Kharolis Mountains but had been unable to send troops past the perimeters of Kal-Thax because of the ferocity of the dwarves’ defenses. For decades the idea of conquest had been set aside, but now the High Overlord was plotting again. With the passing of years the extravagance of the rulers of Xak Tsaroth had increased, until the demand for new riches and new revenues was overwhelming. But those very demands now had curtailed much of the city’s income, as more and more of the people of southern Ergoth rebelled against exorbitant taxation and brutal tactics.

Even the knightly orders of Ergoth tended more and more to sympathize with the rebels, against the power of the great city-state of Xak Tsaroth. The knights – the strongest unified force in the realm – had not so far actually joined any rebellions, but more and more they worked to thwart the slavers and tariff-takers who went out from the city to loot and plunder from the common people of Ergoth.

Even the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth was reluctant to denounce the knightly orders, so he looked for other sources of wealth, and there, just to the west, rose the peaks of the dwarven lands, rich in minerals, forests, fields, and commerce. Here again, though, it was commerce in which Xak Tsaroth had no direct part. The only trade treaty between humans and dwarves was the treaty the thanes had made with the orders of knighthood. In all commerce between Ergoth and Kal-Thax – or Thorbardin, as many now called the whole land – the knights were the agents and intermediaries. The dwarves flatly refused to have dealings with Xak Tsaroth and the overlords.

So the High Overlord sought another alliance. Beyond Kal-Thax, to the west, were other human realms, including the western Ergothian lands ruled by the emperor of Daltigoth.

The High Overlord had chosen carefully, in selecting Quist Redfeather. Few humans had the Cobar’s knowledge of the wilderness, his talent for strategy, and his skill with weapons. The High Overlord knew Quist to be one of the leaders of the free Cobar who had almost succeeded in bringing down the overlords themselves.

The attempt had almost succeeded, but at the last moment something had gone wrong. Soldiers of Xak Tsaroth had scattered the invading Cobar, capturing many of their leaders. Most of those now, of course, were dead – beheaded at the pleasure of the overlords. The rest had been sent away as slaves to be bartered in trade as far east as Istar. Only Quist Redfeather and his family had been spared, Quist to undertake a mission for the overlords, and his family to be held hostage as a guarantee of his cooperation.

The mission was simple. Quist was to journey directly across the dwarven realm to the lands beyond and present to the king there the High Overlord’s proposal for a pact between Xak Tsaroth and Daltigoth, on each side of the dwarves, to join forces and conquer them, and then to split the profits.

He could not cross on the dwarven Road of Passage, because he might be searched and the proposals found. It was assumed that something like that had befallen the overlord’s first such emissary several years before. The emissary had simply disappeared, somewhere between Xak Tsaroth and Daltigoth. So Quist must avoid the road. He must go alone, through the lands around Thorbardin and the wilderness beyond.

And he did not even have a horse, because no horseman could have made it unseen through eastern Kal-Thax, where the dwarves were everywhere. It was almost the worst of insults, having to journey on foot. The Cobar were horsemen, probably the finest horsemen in all of Ergoth. A Cobar without his horse, it was said, was only half a Cobar.

Quist had journeyed afoot halfway across Kal-Thax. The settled lands were behind him, but there was still a long way to go.

Then, on this evening, Quist Redfeather had a stroke of luck. Rounding a bend in the streambed he stopped, faded into the underbrush, then stared. Just ahead, in a little clearing, stood three tired and lathered horses that could only be runaways.

His fierce eyes brightened as he studied them. Fine animals, they were saddled and rigged, but not with human gear. The small saddles with their high stirrups were dwarven work, as was the light, oiled mail of their saddle skirts.

But a saddle could be modified.

Through the night, Quist Redfeather kept watch on the stray horses. No one came to collect them; they were alone. With morning he gathered them in, removed their gear, and went to work to outfit one of them for himself.

Chapter 7

A TIME OF TESTING

The morning sun was still behind the eastern peaks when Damon Omenborn and Tag Salan reached the foot of Sheercliff. From the rising slopes below the massive wall, they scanned the cliff’s face – miles of sheer, precipitous stone standing above slopes that in some places rose to within fifty feet of the lip, but in other places were three times that below it. The cliff was not a flat wall, as it appeared from a distance. The stone was weathered and rough, and the line of the cliff curved in and out erratically. But much of it was visible from the approaching slopes, and by first light of dawn Tag saw something interesting a mile or so south of where they had approached.

“The slope has fresh-broken stone atop the old rubble,” he pointed out. “As though someone has been digging. Let’s take a look.”

“You look.” Damon nodded. “I’m going up there. I want to see what’s atop this wall before the sun tops the horizon.”

“Have a care, Damon,” Tag warned him. “If those wizards are up there, as you suspect, they won’t welcome you.”

“Have a care, yourself,” Damon told him. “Don’t forget what we came here to find in the first place. Where that thing came from, there might be others like it.”

“I’ll just have a look over there where the rubble is, then follow you up.” Tag turned and trotted away, south along the foot of the cliff.

Slinging his hammer and shield on his back, Damon selected a place and began to climb. For a human, scaling such a wall without pitons and line would have been almost impossible. But Damon was not human. He was a dwarf, and like most dwarves he had learned to climb almost before he learned to walk. The rugged face of the cliff offered handholds and toeholds in abundance, until he was within twenty feet of the top. Then, suddenly, he came to smooth stone.

“Wind-scour,” he muttered. Reluctantly, he unslung his hammer and began to make his own holds, chipping away expertly at the rock, hoping that the sound would not carry to anyone who might be up there.

The climbing was slower now, since he needed to pause at each hold to make another one above, but he kept going and soon was striking his final hold just below the brushy rim of the escarpment. When it was completed he slung his hammer again, pulled himself up, and peered over – directly into bright eyes in a small, curious face beneath a tied pile of flowing hair.

“Hello, there!” the creature said softly. “You made so much noise that I was afraid you might wake up those wizards, but I guess you didn’t.”

With a heave, Damon pulled himself over the edge of the cliff, stared for a moment at the chatty little thing, then rose to a crouch and gazed around.

“Oh, good!” the small creature said. “Another dwarf! Well, you’ll be useful, I imagine. You’re a lot bigger than my dwarf. Of course, she’s just a girl. Do you have a sword or a spear or anything? Or just that hammer? My dwarf has an axe.”

Crouching, Damon scanned the terrain carefully. Not far away, a hundred yards back from the cliff’s edge and just north of him, was what appeared to be a camp. A long, sagging shelter of saplings and layered brush was surrounded by a jumble of tied packs, cut poles, and various crude vessels. Beyond, the grassy flat was burned and blackened for several hundred yards, almost to the wooded slope that climbed away toward distant peaks. The mesa was narrow here, encroached by a shoulder of the nearest mountain.

Beside him, almost at his shoulder, the creature with the tied hair chattered on happily in a high, musical voice. “… waiting for me over there in those trees,” it said. “Of course, Cawe isn’t there. He let us off higher up the slope, and he’s probably gone on up to tell the others that we brought help.”

Damon ignored the chatter. At the brush shelter, he saw movement, and someone stepped out into the slanted sunlight. It was a man, a tall, skinny human male with a long, untended gray beard and a head that was bald except around the edges. As he stepped out into the sunlight and straightened, he donned a dirty, smoke-stained pointed hat that might once have been white. His attire was equally filthy, a long, loose white robe, belted at the waist with a piece of rope. The robe might once have hung to the ground, but it looked as though the hems had been burned away. It fell to midcalf only, exposing a pair of thin, awkward legs and two very large feet in sandals.

“… usually wakes up first,” the high voice at Damon’s shoulder chattered. “I don’t think he sleeps as well as the others. But they’ll be up before long. Then you can decide what to do about them. My dwarf doesn’t seem to have any good ideas.”

At the brush shelter, the robed man yawned, scratched vigorously under one arm, and turned toward a pile of sticks a few steps away. He started toward it, then seemed to change his mind. Raising a long, thin arm he held it before him for a moment, then pointed a commanding finger at the pile of sticks. Obediently, several bits of wood atop the stack rose into the air, turned this way and that, then drifted toward the man to fall at his feet, arranging themselves into a cone of kindling. The man said something, and the kindling burst into flame.

Damon realized that his mouth was open and closed it with a click of hard teeth. Magic! The wizards everyone was looking for were here, on Sheercliff! He had found them.

“… might be best for the two of you to talk it over,” the chattering voice was saying. “That’s a good idea. I’ll go get my dwarf, and the two of you can make a plan.”

Damon shuddered in revulsion. He had never seen magic before and had never wanted to. But now he was sure that whatever had happened to him and his companions, causing the death of Copper Blueboot, had indeed been an act of magic. His brows lowering in distaste, he grunted, then glanced around, suddenly aware of what the chattering voice at his shoulder had been saying.

“Dwarf?” he said. “What dwarf?”

But there was no one there. Whoever and whatever the small creature was, it was gone.

“What was that all about?” Damon muttered. He shifted to a better position, eased the slings on his shield and hammer, and turned his attention again to the camp. Three wizards. One was awake, and the other two would be awake soon. Even as he thought it, a second man stepped out of the lean-to, straightening and stretching long arms in the early sunlight. Though not quite as tall as the first one, this man looked stronger. He was wide-shouldered and sturdy, and his posture was that of a strong, athletic person. Under a wide-brimmed brown hat, his face was full-bearded, a substantial brush of brown whiskers that would have done justice to a dwarf.

He wore a shortcoat of tanned hide with a fur collar and wide fur cuffs. His leggings were of simple buckskin, and he wore high, sturdy boots. The only element of bright color in his garb was the wide shoulder-sling of his leather pouch. The sling strap was dyed bright red.

He went to the woodpile, gathered an armload of sticks, and returned to the little fire. Squatting easily, he laid sticks across the fire, then set a metal pot atop them, poured water into it from a flask, and began peeling a potato.

Behind him, a third man stepped from the shelter, hunched and scuttling in a crablike shuffle as he walked past the others to turn full around, shading his eyes with a pale hand. Damon could see little of his features. A floppy black hat shaded him, and the high collar of his dark, full coat hid his face. Below the coat, a stained robe hung nearly to the ground.

As the dark one turned toward Damon, he paused, then leaned to peer harder. Damon froze in place, hidden in the brush. He felt as though the human was looking directly at him. After a moment, though, the man continued his full-circle scrutiny, then stepped to the fire and sat beside it, warming his hands.

Damon waited long minutes, but nothing further occurred. The three at the fire were simply preparing breakfast. Rather, the one with the red strap was preparing breakfast, while the other two waited for it. The dark one sat there warming his hands, and the tall skinny one was removing things from a pack. At first Damon supposed they might be dishes, but then the man held one up, studying it, and it caught the sun’s rays. It was a mirror. The man was unpacking mirrors.

When he was certain that there were no more humans in the group, Damon made up his mind. Though wilderness, this was still dwarven land, and these people were trespassers. Crouching, moving carefully, he worked his way to a patch of brush only yards from the camp, then with shield and hammer in hand he stood and stalked toward them.

“You people don’t belong here!” he said sternly.

Three surprised faces turned toward him. The dark-coated one scooted back, hissing an oath. The white-robe squeaked, stumbled over his own feet, and dropped one of his mirrors. It shattered on the ground. The one squatting by the fire turned, gazed curiously at the armed dwarf, then carefully set aside his potato and knife, and stood. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

“We don’t pardon those who trespass in Kal-Thax,” Damon said levelly. “And especially not those who attack us. Do you deny doing a magic to us yesterday that cost the life of a friend of mine?”

“You …” The dark scuttler got to his feet, staring at Damon in disbelief. “Are you telling us that you are one of those? That’s preposterous! I killed all three!”

“So it was you,” Damon rumbled. “Well, you did kill one of us, wizard. Copper Blueboot is dead. His horse fell on him. You have that to answer for. That” — he looked at each of them, one after another — “and trespassing on lands held by the thanes of Thorbardin. What are you doing here?”

The dark, hunched one hissed again and began a chant of some sort, but the leather-clad one hushed him. Turning back to Damon, he said, “My name is Megistal. This is Tantas, and over there is Sigamon. We are here because …”

“Shut up!” the white-robe snapped. “We agreed not to tell anyone about that!”

“Well, we’ve been found!” Megistal snapped back. “This one’s questions deserve answers.” He tipped his head, studying Damon carefully. “So you are a dwarf,” he said. “I haven’t ever seen one up close. Are you really one of those that Tantas killed … or thought he killed?”

“I did kill them!” Tantas rasped. “I know what went into my spell, and those dwarves are dead. No one could have lived through that.”

“You aren’t answering my questions,” Damon pointed out.

“We are surveyors,” Megistal said, his hands hushing the other two. “Surveyors for the Orders of High Sorcery. We are here to prepare a site for a Tower of High Sorcery.”

“This is where we will build it,” the white-robed one chirped. “It will be good for everyone.”

“Like rust you will,” Damon assured the man. “No tower, no sorcery, no humans on dwarven property. You are not welcome here.”

“And who are you to command us?” Megistal asked.

“I am Damon Omenborn, of Thane Hylar of Thorbardin.”

“And what is your authority in such matters?”

“I live in this land,” Damon said levelly. “You don’t.”

“Is that your name for this land, then? Thorbardin?”

“This land is Kal-Thax. Thorbardin is its fortress. Now …” With his hammer, he pointed at Megistal, and then at the glaring Sigamon. “You and you, I ask you once, politely, to pack your possessions and leave Kal-Thax as quickly as you can, by the way you came. Leave, and don’t come back.” Turning to Tantas, he added, “You won’t be leaving. Copper Blueboot was my friend, and I claim right of challenge.”

“You claim what?” Tantas stared at him. “Are you … do you mean to challenge me?”

“You are challenged,” Damon said.

With a hiss, Tantas muttered, “Mordit tat!” He pointed a stiff finger at the dwarf. “Chapak!”

Instantly a large sword appeared in the air directly in front of Damon and slashed at him. He caught it on his shield, deflecting it, and it disappeared with a pop and a puff of dark smoke.

“Magic,” Damon Omenborn mumbled to himself. “That seemed like a sword. But it was no sword. It was only magic.”

Tantas gaped at the dwarf. “Impossible!” he grumbled. Again he voiced a sharp command, and a steel-tipped arrow drove into Damon’s breastplate, piercing his armor. The impact of it tumbled him backward.

An agony like none he had ever felt tore through Damon, driving the breath from his lungs and the sight from his eyes. The arrow had pierced him through. But how could it be an arrow? No bow had flung it. “Magic,” he gasped, fighting for control of the pain that seared within him. “There is no arrow. Magic is only magic, nothing more.”

Tantas gaped again. The fallen dwarf was getting to his feet. He stood looking down at the glistening shaft standing in his breast. Pain shone in his eyes, but at the same time something else kindled there. The dwarf’s jaws tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “I only imagine this,” he whispered. “It is not real.” Gritting his teeth, he struck the shaft with the edge of his shield. The arrow broke and disappeared as the sword had.

“I don’t believe this!” Tantas shrilled. Frantically, he began another spell, this one far more elaborate.

“That’s enough,” Damon growled. More quickly than a human could have imagined possible, he swung his hammer and threw it. Tantas tried to duck aside, and the other mages tried to weave spells, but it was too late. The big hammer hummed through the air, struck the dark wizard directly in the face, and carried him backward to sprawl flat on the hard ground.

Stunned and shocked, the other two wizards hurried to their companion, knelt beside him, and pulled back his high collar. Inside, where there had once been a face, now there was only blood oozing from smashed features.

“He’s dead!” Sigamon screeched. “The dwarf killed him!”

Damon stepped past them, retrieved his hammer, and wiped it clean on the fallen wizard’s sleeve. “He accepted my challenge,” he said flatly. “He lost. Now, you two, I’ll give you one hour to pack your things.”

In a rage, Sigamon stood, whirled toward the dwarf, and threw a spell that sizzled from both of his hands like burning ice. Again the dwarf was thrown to the ground, and this time his shield and hammer were torn from his grip.

Dimly, he heard Megistal say, “Sigamon, don’t! This is a phenomenon we must study. Somehow this creature has resisted magic. We must know how!”

“No!” Sigamon panted, holding his spell in place as Damon struggled against it. “No, he’s far too dangerous. Maybe magic won’t kill him, but falling from a cliff will. Stand back!”

Struggling, trying to break free of the searing pain of the spell that held him, Damon felt himself rise and saw the ground move beneath him. Slowly he began to float toward the edge of Sheercliff. He gritted his teeth, waved and kicked, and abruptly fell to the ground. But before he could get to his feet the spell had him again, lifting him. Turning and tumbling in the air, he had a glimpse of the bulging eyes, the straining features of the white wizard. Sigamon was putting every ounce of his strength into his magic.

Megistal backed away, shaking his head. Sigamon summoned all his energy and concentrated on his spell. The dwarf’s resistance was incredible. He should have been instantly thrown out past the ledge, but instead it was all Sigamon could do to float him slowly toward the drop. As he concentrated with all his will, someone tugged at his robe.

“Excuse me,” a high-pitched voice said. “Your pot has fallen over in the fire.”

The spell snapped, the dwarf clattered to the ground, and Sigamon sagged, panting and sweating. Beside him stood a small person, no taller than his hip, gazing up with excited, happy eyes.

“A … kender,” Sigamon panted. “A … blasted … kender!”

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Shill.”

Megistal stared at the kender, then glanced up and shouted, “Sigamon! Watch out!”

Before the white-robe could react, something very solid and strong crashed into him, doubling him over and carrying him backward. Arms as thick as oak branches and as hard as quarried stone circled him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. The tall mage was carried backward a dozen feet, then lifted high, spun around, and thrown to the ground. Before he could move, the dwarf was on him, pinning his arms behind his back. Powerful fingers locked themselves in the sparse hair behind his bald pate, lifted his head, and slammed it down.

Sigamon passed out.

Amazed and fascinated, Megistal watched the dwarf stand away from the wizard and rub his hands together as though to wash away filth.

Damon turned to the third wizard. “I suppose I’ll have to deal with you, too,” he said.

“I can hardly let this go unresolved.” Megistal shrugged, almost apologetically. “But tell me, why aren’t you dead? You should be dead. Those spells were very powerful.”

“Spells,” Damon sneered. “Magic. I don’t like magic.”

“Well, whether you like it or not, I don’t understand how you managed to resist it as you did. Didn’t their spells hurt you?”

“They hurt,” Damon growled. “Like nothing I’ve ever felt, they hurt. But they weren’t actually … real. They were just magic.”

“Magic is real!” Megistal protested. “Don’t you know that? Magic can … Here, I’ll show you.” He muttered a few syllables and raised his hand. Nearby, the brush lean-to shivered, grew, and became a tall stone tower. Megistal pointed at it. “What do you see there?”

“Magic,” Damon admitted. “I see a tower … and a brush shelter. The tower is just an illusion.”

“You’re right.” The mage nodded. He snapped his fingers, and the tower disappeared. “That was only illusion, but this isn’t.” Again he spoke words, and the brush shelter raised itself from the ground, soared like a bird high overhead, and settled to earth again several hundred yards away. “That was no illusion,” Megistal said. “That was true movement.”

“I guess it was,” Damon admitted. “It was still magic, though. And magic is something we don’t want in Kal-Thax. Are you going to leave?”

“Fascinating,” the wizard muttered. “A mixture of acceptance and disbelief, of realization and revulsion, and under it all, just plain stubbornness. Are you one of a kind, or are all dwarves like you?”

“I don’t know,” Damon growled. “Now, get out of Kal-Thax!”

“Well, I’ve enjoyed talking to you,” the wizard said. “You have taught me something that I didn’t know. And I really don’t blame you about Tantas and Sigamon. Tantas is good riddance, as far as I’m concerned, and Sigamon deserved what he got. I’m really sorry that I must … Mordes motem! Chapak!”

Caught completely off-guard, Damon felt himself lifted and flung toward the cliff.

“Surprise defeats stubbornness,” Megistal said to himself questioningly. Then something hummed behind him, and a fist-sized stone bounced off the back of his head. The wizard sighed, his knees buckled, and he sagged to the ground. At the very lip of the cliff, Damon dropped, tumbled, and went over, clawing and struggling. For a moment he clung to the edge; then a small, strong hand grasped his wrist, and an irate voice snapped, “Well, don’t just dangle! Climb!”

With assistance, Damon pulled himself to safety, got to his knees, and looked directly into the wide-set eyes of Willow Summercloud.

“You!” he gasped.

“You might at least say thanks,” she pointed out. “If I hadn’t popped that man with a sling-stone, you’d be …”

“Thanks,” he said, getting to his feet.

At the edge of the cliff, the little kender teetered precariously, looking down. “Wow!” she shrilled. “That was pretty close. Aren’t you glad I brought my dwarf? This is …” She glanced around. “Oh, do you two already know each other?”

Damon peered at the fallen Megistal curiously. The man had tried to kill him, that was certain. But just in that instant, the dwarf had sensed a reluctance, as though the wizard was not trying nearly as hard as he might.

Chapter 8

THE LOREKEEPER’S OMEN

Tag Salan knew, within minutes of entering the crevice under Sheercliff, that he had found what they came to find – the origin of the fog-thing that had wiped out three villages.

The stone-fall on the slope outside the crevice had not been delved from outside. It had been pushed out from within by something very powerful. And there were still marks in the crushed gravel made by the thing’s feet.

Tag rolled tight balls of grass around the ends of sticks, wrapped them with burr-vines, and wove them tight. The resulting bundle of torches – which some dwarves called Theiwar lamps – would give no great light, but each small flame would last for a while. With his first light ignited, Tag drew his blade and entered the dark hole.

The tall, narrow tunnel wound its way into the cliff, turning here and there where scour and erosion had opened faults, but generally going westward and down, deeper and deeper into the stone, hundreds of feet below the mesa. Along most of its length the crevice was no more than a sequence of natural, downward erosion channels, rarely more than a few yards wide, but often so tall that Tag could not see the ceiling. In some places the channels plunged away into dark nothingness both above and below, forcing him to find precarious paths across blind abysses – or to make his own paths. Only where the natural openings were very narrow did he find evidence that something had passed this way. In several such places, stone had been broken away to make the opening broad enough to accommodate something that was at least ten feet wide. In one such place he paused to taste the raw stone of the expanded opening. It was freshly exposed, not more than a month or two at most.

It was slow going, but Tag kept at it. His Theiwar ancestors had been cliff-dwellers who lived in the natural caverns high on sheer mountainsides, and negotiating perilous crevices was as natural to him as working mine shafts to a Daergar, or delving to a Daewar.

By the time the tunnel changed, he could only guess at where he was, but he knew he was at least half a mile into the stone, and many hundreds of feet below its surface.

He barely glimpsed the change in the tunnel before his most recent torch flickered out, and he had to kindle another. But when he had light again, his eyes widened. The erosion channels ended abruptly at a wall of far harder stone, and in this wall was a perfectly round opening, and beyond the opening a perfectly round tunnel angling upward. He estimated the hole to be fifteen feet across.

Stepping into it, he found an obstacle – an ancient, eroded plug of stone that had worn away with the passing of time and fallen inward. It lay now in two pieces, split down the middle, and the break tasted fresh. Whatever had come through here had been blocked by the fallen “gate” and had broken it and gone over it.

Although the break was fresh, the surfaces of the gate were immensely old – as old, Tag guessed, as the mountains themselves. The sides of the tunnel were equally old, though exquisitely delved. They were perfectly smooth, without so much as a tool mark anywhere to indicate how such a thing had been created. The only flaw in the tunnel was a ragged trough running along the bottom of it, crusted with limestone. Water had run here in the past – slowly, but for a very long time. Tag looked around at the mystery and shuddered. It was as though the gods themselves might have made this tunnel, long before there was anybody else around to do it.

Fascinated, he went on, climbing steadily as he followed the strange hole. Upward and onward, the tunnel was as straight as a drawn cable. A quarter mile, then another quarter mile, and suddenly he was at its end. Here another stone gate had eroded and fallen, had lain for untold centuries, then had been smashed aside by something very large and very strong.

Beyond the crushed gate was a large vaulted area, a sphere of glistening, shaped stone except for its floor, where limestone had crusted over the granite, filling a fourth of the cavern. Near its center, the floor had been broken away. Odd bits of broken limestone were scattered about, encircling a jagged ridge of broken stone like a small volcanic ring.

Tag approached, held his torch high, looked into the core, and whistled. This was where the thing had come from. Within the limestone was a perfect imprint of a great, curled body. He could see the clear impression of a huge, taloned foot. Part of the deep concavity where a big haunch had lain blended into the larger concavity where its body had been molded in limestone. Its head – he could see few details, except that its jaws were very large and contained a lot of sharp teeth – had been nestled on one forearm or wing, and its long, sinuous tail had been curled around it.

“It slept here,” he told himself. “It slept here, and the stone grew around it. Then it woke up.”

For a while he searched, but there was nothing more to see. Whatever the thing was, it had been alone. The cavern was entirely empty, and the only way out was the way he had come. With his last two torches, Tag Salan retraced a mile or more of passages, finally emerging into the open air where he had started. The sun was over the escarpment. More than half the day had passed. He followed the wall northward to where Damon Omenborn had made his climb, and started up. He had noticed that the upper level of the cliff was sheer, smooth stone. Damon would have had to cut holds there. Tag could use the same holds.

Atop Sheercliff he found his Hylar friend – and much more. Damon was no longer alone. In addition to a dead wizard and two live ones, he had acquired a very pretty dwarven girl and what could only be a female kender. The small creature was the first to notice Tag’s approach. She stared, then ran to meet him.

“Goodness!” she said. “Another dwarf! But you missed all the fun. There is no more magic being done here right now. I’m Shill. Well, actually I’m Shillitec Medina Quickfoot, but you can call me Shill. And I guess you’re Tag. Damon said you’d be along directly. Are you looking for Damon? He’s right over there with Willow – she’s my dwarf – packing mirrors and things. He has already packed the wizards, see?”

She pointed, and Tag stared. Two men, one rather badly bruised, lay side by side, thoroughly bound hand and foot. Their mouths were covered with gags. A third man lay sprawled nearby, obviously dead.

At a pile of packs and bundles, Damon Omenborn glanced around, stood, and turned. The girl with him also straightened, glaring at the newcomer.

“Don’t remove those people’s gags,” Damon warned. “They’re magic-makers, and their mouths are their main problem.” He came forward, looked Tag over, and asked, “What did you find?”

“I found its nest,” the Theiwar said. “Or its bed. That thing was down there a long time before it woke up.”

“Any others like it?”

“Only the one. Somebody had sealed it into a cave, long enough ago for a half-mile of mountain and several feet of limestone to grow around it. What’s been going on here?”

“Wizardry,” Damon snapped, his eyes narrowing. “Those three have been up here surveying, if you can believe that. They intended to occupy this plateau and build some kind of magic place on it. A tower of sorcery. But I’ve put an end to that. I invited them to leave, but they chose to fight. I wish you’d been here. I could have used a little help.”

The dwarf girl had approached, and now she snapped, “You had help, in case you’ve forgotten! If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead now.”

“Sorry.” Damon nodded. “Yes, I had help. Tag, this is Willow Summercloud. She’s from Windhollow, and …”

“I remember,” Tag grinned, bowing slightly.

“… and she followed us when we came west.”

“I brought her here,” the kender girl chirped. “She had never ridden a bird before, but she has now. Cawe wanted someone to do something about these wizards, so we went looking for a dwarf, and she was the first one we found. Do you two know that you both have scorched beards?”

“What do we do with the wizards?” Tag asked Damon.

“I don’t really know, but we can’t leave them here. They’d just start building towers again.”

Tag drew his short sword. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll just cut their throats.”

The wizard in the dirty robes looked as though he were about to faint, but the nearest wizard, a bearded man with buckskin breeches and a red strap, struggled and strained at his bonds, his muffled voice audible behind his gag.

“He wants to talk,” the little kender said.

“Of course he does,” Damon sneered. “He wants to say a spell.”

The wizard shook his head urgently, trying again to speak. Damon squatted beside him. “You have something important to say?”

The man nodded.

“No spells?” Damon demanded.

The man shook his head earnestly.

Damon thought it over, then beckoned to Tag. “Remove his gag,” he said. “But stay at his side, and if he says one word … one single word … that you don’t understand, kill him.”

With the gag removed, Megistal cleared his throat, then told Damon, “It won’t do you any good to kill us. With Tantas dead, Sigamon and I cannot continue our project. It requires three.”

“Then there will be no tower?” Damon asked.

“Oh, there will be a tower,” the man said. “Others are following us. They’ll finish the project, whether we’re here or not.”

“Like rust they will,” Damon growled. “Thorbardin will see to that.”

“You can’t stop the Orders of High Sorcery.” Megistal sighed.

“We can certainly try. And with all your survey stakes removed …”

“It makes no difference now. We have completed the testing of the stones, and the Stone of Threes is planted at the center point. All that remains to lay the foundation perimeters for the tower is the testing of mirrors. The others will find the Stone of Threes and complete the tests. Then building will begin, and nothing you or all the dwarves of this land can do will stop them.”

“Tell me where the Stone of Threes is,” Damon growled.

“No.” Megistal lowered his eyes. “Kill me if you will, but I won’t tell you that.”

The kender girl stood beside Damon. She reached into the pouch at her belt and withdrew a bauble. “Is this it?” she asked.

“Put that back!” the wizard gasped, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “That isn’t yours, you little … purloiner!”

Abruptly, Tag’s blade went across the wizard’s exposed throat, and Damon had to grab quickly to stop the cut. “Wait!” he said. “What are you doing?”

“He said a word I don’t understand,” Tag explained, shrugging.

“It just means ‘thief,’” Damon growled. Turning, he grabbed the bauble from the kender’s hand and looked at it. It was an oval gemstone, a polished thing of many facets. Its color seemed to change constantly as he turned it in the sunlight, shifting from clear to milky white, to various shades of red, to gray, to inky black.

“I’d say, offhand, that this is the Stone of Threes,” the dwarf said. “What’s it for?”

“Put it back!” Megistal shouted. “You don’t know what you’re doing! There are only seven of those. One for each Tower of High Sorcery. Without it … Without all seven towers, magic will never be properly balanced!”

“Tough,” Damon mused. Casually, he held the changing gem to the light, then tasted it with his tongue. His nose wrinkled in disgust. The thing didn’t taste like a normal, natural gem. It tasted terrible.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Megistal demanded.

“I’m putting you out of the tower business.” Damon stood, put the gem into his own belt pouch, and sealed the flap.

“Hey!” the kender chirped, “that’s mine! I found it!”

“Do we kill them now?” Tag asked Damon, replacing the wizard’s gag.

“No.” Damon hesitated. “We probably should, but … no. Maybe they will spread the word that wizards don’t belong here.”

“What are we going to do with them?”

“Leave them,” Damon urged. “By the time they get loose, we’ll be well away from here.” He turned to Megistal. “Be grateful for your life, human,” he said. “Just remember, you have been ordered out of Kal-Thax. I suggest you leave as soon as you can move.”

*

While the leaders of the thanes of Thorbardin – meeting in extraordinary session on a cleared stone shelf above the Daebardin docks – got down to the business of hearing the reports of Gran Stonemill and Mace Hammerstand, Quill Runebrand wandered around the area like a small, dark cloud. Head down and hands clasped behind him, he stalked here and there muttering to himself, sometimes causing people to dodge aside to keep from being bumped into.

Deep in concentration, he tried to assemble his thoughts in practical, logical order, as any good dwarf might do when something is bothering him. But it seemed to do no good. Oh, there were things bothering Quill, all right. He wasn’t happy about the informal meeting of the council. Quill loved pomp and ceremony, and the chieftains had just dispensed with all of that and gone straight to business.

The business of the killing thing that had launched itself upon Kal-Thax worried him, too. It was frightening and unsettling that there could be such a creature, right here in the mountains of the dwarven clans. What was it? Where did it come from? Were there others like it out there somewhere? And what was Damon Omenborn thinking of to go off on some wild mission to search for such a thing’s nest? Damon Omenborn was to be the “father of kings,” if there was anything to the old stories about his birth. Now he was out there in the wild, somewhere, almost as though he were inviting his own doom.

It was Mistral Thrax who had told Quill Runebrand that Damon was destined to be the father of kings. Mistral Thrax had heard it himself from the apparition of Kitlin Fishtaker, who was legendary. Mistral Thrax had believed it, and Quill Runebrand wanted it to be true – though he couldn’t bring himself to really wish kings on his people.

But if Damon went out tearing around the wilderness lands and got himself killed, then none of it could ever come to be.

Quill stalked, muttered to himself, and worried.

There was the problem of the human wizards who had disappeared from the Road of Passage – first three of them and now, if those people on the Ergothian border could be believed, maybe a hundred or so more. What were humans doing in Kal-Thax? What were they after? And even more terrible, these were magic-users. That was as frightening to the dwarf as it was revolting.

And Gran Stonemill’s concern about the old Daewar tunnel that led through Sky’s End Mountain – that also was a great worry. Was the tunnel truly sealed? Was it proof against magic-users? And if not, could it be made so? Quill Runebrand knew little about magic, but his intuition told him that anything that had been closed could be opened.

The only way for the old tunnel to be safe, he felt, would be for there to be no tunnel at all. If it were somehow obliterated, instinct told him, then even magic couldn’t unobliterate it.

Wandering the ways of the Daebardin waterfront, Quill fumed and fretted. Something was nagging at him, some hunch or intuition that seemed just beyond his grasp. He couldn’t tell which of his many worries it was.

Could it be the fact that Northgate, though almost completed, was still an open portal? Or the fact that nothing had been heard from Cale Greeneye’s search party since they set out to track the fogbound creature?

Could it be something he had eaten?

He searched his mind for all of the many things he might find to worry about, seeking clues as to which one had suddenly raised itself in his thoughts from worry to innate dread. Mistral Thrax had always been an intuitive dwarf, often seeming to know a bit more about things than he rightly could know. It came, he had said, of having been exposed once to magic. He had recovered from the magic, he said, but some of its echoes lingered on.

And maybe some of those echoes had passed on to Quill Runebrand.

There was the question that had become foremost among the chieftains, almost from the moment Barek Stone expressed it. The point that, in emergency, Thorbardin could have only one leader. As the captain general of forces stated it, the point was obvious and in-arguable. But to Quill, as to most dwarves of Thorbardin, the idea of everybody being led by one person was a frightful thought. And worse yet, it bordered on the heretical.

Only once had anyone ever tried to be king of all the dwarves. That was the maniac Glome, ninety years ago. Glome had died for his efforts, but the episode had solidified one thing that all the dwarves could agree about. They didn’t want to have a king.

And nobody wanted to be a king, either. No sane dwarf, in Quill’s opinion, would ever seek such a job. But in case of real emergency, one must lead.

Quill scratched his beard, shook his head, and started to pace again, then looked up, and his eyes widened. He was standing at the lakeshore – the subterranean lake that was named Urkhan Sea – and as he raised his eyes some trick of light drew his gaze to the mighty stalactite descending into midlake from the shadows of the great cavern above. The stalactite was the largest natural construct of living stone that anyone had ever seen. It was probably the largest stalactite in the world. It was called the Life Tree, and within it was the rising city of Hybardin, home of Thane Hylar.

Sun-tunnels above Daebardin lighted the shoreline brightly, but out in the center of the lake there was a gloominess as though clouds were forming around the Life Tree – dark clouds that spread in all directions to obscure the distant, vaulted ceilings of Thorbardin.

Quill blinked and rubbed his eyes. A trick of the light, he told himself. But it was still there, and now a ghostly figure seemed to appear in the clouds. Huge, wavering, and barely visible, it might have been a faint mirage, but Quill stared at it in openmouthed awe. It was the vague outline of a dwarf, and it seemed to shift from one contour to another. One minute it appeared to be an old dwarf leaning on a crutch – the way Mistral Thrax had leaned on his crutch sometimes – and the next moment it was slightly different, like a tattered dwarf beset by scars and pain, holding in his hand a fishing spear.

Quill stared, gulped, and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the phenomenon. But none had, it seemed. People came and went around him, hurrying this way and that as people always did, but even those who glanced toward the lake in passing seemed to notice nothing odd. Yet when Quill turned back, the shifting cloud-image was still there for his eyes. Now voices spoke in his mind, voices that whispered in unison.

“What one fears is not the teeth of a dragon, nor the tail nor the talons of a dragon,” the voices whispered. “What one fears when the mind envisions dragons is the whole dragon.”

“What?” Quill asked aloud. Around him, several dwarves glanced his way, raised curious brows, then went on.

“It is not this scroll or that scroll that contains wisdom,” the voices whispered in his head. “Wisdom is not in any scroll … but it is in all scrolls.”

Quill frowned, flapped his arms, and shouted. “What in the name of Reorx does that mean?” Around him people stopped, stared at him, then hurried away, hoping whatever afflicted the lorekeeper was not contagious.

The cloud-vision shifted, from crutch-leaner to spear-holder and back. “A spoke is not a wheel,” the mind-voices whispered. “A point is not an arrow, nor is grain bread. Knowledge is not wisdom, Quill Runebrand, nor is the part the puzzle.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?” Quill shrieked. “What does it mean?” Members of a guard company passing nearby looked at one another and shook their heads. The keeper of scrolls was becoming stranger by the day.

The mind-voices were silent for a moment, the vision shifting and swaying. Then a single voice, a voice halting and oddly inflected, whispered to him, “Your concerns are well founded, Quill Runebrand. Thorbardin is in peril. Beware.”

Before he could react, the voice changed to another voice, and Quill gasped. “What did I teach you?” the voice of Mistral Thrax hissed in his mind. “What was the first, fundamental thing I tried to get through your thick skull?”

Then as quickly as it had appeared, or seemed to appear, the vision was gone, though the impression of dark clouds over Thorbardin remained. Maybe the lorekeeper had seen a vision, and maybe he only imagined it, but suddenly the vague dreads in his mind became sure knowledge. He turned away, his face as pale as winter ice.

The fundamental thing! Wisdom is not a knowledge. Wisdom is all the knowledge one has, speaking in its own way, telling the mind things that are beyond knowing.

Intuition, Mistral Thrax had told him many years ago, is wisdom trying to get through the narrow places in the mind.

Quill knew now what had been bothering him. It was not just the mystery of the mages, not just the killing beast that stalked the mountains, not just the question of how to meet an emergency. It was all of those things combined.

Somehow they were all connected, somehow all interrelated, and they were the parts of the danger that Quill sensed.

Thorbardin was in peril, and the dark clouds he sensed were an omen!

A time of storms was at hand.

“Barek Stone was right!” Quill announced to no one in particular, as startled passers-by turned to stare at him. “The mages will come to Thorbardin, and we will have to fight them! And the beast of the fog is out there because of the mages!”

Scattering bystanders in all directions, Quill Runebrand ran as fast as his quick, short legs could pump, heading for the pavilion where the chieftains of the thanes were just facing the question of how to meet an emergency that could threaten the entire fortress and the realm it protected.

As he approached, Quill was shouting, “Listen to me! Listen! We don’t need a king, but we do need a … a … Oh, rust, what’s a good word? A … an executive! A council can rule, but one must order!”

In the pavilion, puzzled faces turned toward him.

“What the blazes is the scrollmaster jabbering about?” Olim Goldbuckle snapped, turning to Willen Ironmaul. “He’s Hylar, Willen. Does he make sense to you?”

For a moment, Willen Ironmaul didn’t answer. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Yes, he makes sense. And, by Reorx, he’s right!” Willen stood and raised his hands for silence. “I propose a regency,” he said when he had their attention. “We all agree, Thorbardin needs no king. But we must have one who can direct all when necessary. A regent could have full authority to lead and command, and still not be a king. He’d just be a chief of chiefs.”

They thought it over, and Slide Tolec asked, “On what would such authority be based?”

“On the approval of the council,” Willen said. “Approval given in advance, for certain actions under certain conditions.”

“The problem remains, though,” Vog Ironface rumbled. “There may be a day when Daergar will follow Theiwar, or Theiwar follow Daewar, but that day has not come yet. Why would a Daergar follow one who is not Daergar, or a Theiwar one not Theiwar?”

“Because they follow their own chieftains,” Willen said. “And a regent would speak not just for the council, but for each chieftain among us.”

“Klar followed Hylar once,” Pakka Trune observed. “We did not regret that. Would Willen Ironmaul be regent?”

“I have no wish to be regent.” The Hylar shook his head. “Olim Goldbuckle is senior here. Let him be regent.”

“Not me!” Goldbuckle snorted. “The rest of you are chieftains. I am prince of my people. Were I to become regent, as sorry as I am to admit it, the Daewar might become truly insufferable.”

“They already are,” a Theiwar on the sidelines muttered.

“Don’t look at me.” Slide Tolec pushed back from the table as glances turned his way. “I’m no regent. I never even wanted to be chieftain of the Theiwar.”

Vog Ironface removed his iron mask, his grizzled fox-face wrinkling in a squinting frown. “I refuse to be considered,” he rumbled. “I am Daergar. I will never be less … or more.”

“Well, we’re not leaving this table until somebody is regent,” Olim Goldbuckle snorted.

“Reorx,” Quill Runebrand muttered. “And I thought I had a good idea.”

Chapter 9

THE SHAFT OF REORX

When Willen Ironmaul of the Hylar – much against his better judgment – was made regent of Thorbardin, it was by vote of five to one. His was the only opposing vote. It was Olim Goldbuckle’s argument that clinched the decision of the chieftains. Having once been Calnar, the Daewar prince pointed out, the Hylar had the cultural experience of operating and defending a great dwarven stronghold. Thoradin had been their home. Second, he argued, it had been the Hylar who brought the other thanes together under the Covenant of the Forge, and it might be assumed that the people who created a bond were the best equipped to maintain that bond. And, finally, the wily Daewar pointed out – his eyes twinkling as he sealed the Hylar’s fate – the Hylar was the only thane in Thorbardin that other thanes did not have ancient reasons to hate. The Hylar hadn’t been in these mountains long enough to have collected grudges. Therefore, he proclaimed, the only logical choice for regent of Thorbardin was Willen Ironmaul.

All things considered, Willen took the outcome of the vote fairly graciously. He stormed around for a few minutes, accusing his fellow chieftains of everything from treachery to complicity, then resumed his seat and pounded the table with a heavy fist. “If I am to be regent,” he thundered, glaring at one and then another of the chiefs, “I shall begin with some proclamations.”

His first proclamation was that any dwarf who approached or addressed him in the way one might normally approach or address a ruler had better be ready to meet him in the pits. He would no more tolerate the trappings of royalty than would any other sane dwarf.

His second proclamation was that completion of Northgate was the highest priority task within Thorbardin and should be accomplished as quickly as was dwarvenly possible.

His third order was that the old Daewar tunnel – the original route of exploration into the undermountain realm – should be thoroughly inspected, its seals reinforced, and that, if possible, the external end of it – fifty miles north of the first warren on the northeast slope of Sky’s End Peak – should be not only sealed but obliterated for all time. To dwarven logic, the only truly impenetrable tunnel was no tunnel at all.

“That tunnel took a decade to delve,” Olim Goldbuckle said. “How do you propose to obliterate it in less time?”

“I give your best delvers one week to find an answer to that question.” Willen glared at the Daewar. “If they have not done so in that time, then, by Reorx, I’ll come up with an answer myself!”

The new regent turned to the other chieftains, his gaze thoughtful and serious. “I believe, from the reports we have, that Thorbardin will face grave threats very soon. I want an inventory of every means and mechanism we have for defense.”

“You already have that,” Slide Tolec pointed out. “We have garrison troops, we have the guards, and the Roving Guard. …”

“Yes, I know.” Willen nodded. “And we have the gates – one of them, anyway – and Anvil’s Echo behind each gate. We have murder holes and guard stations. All of these are for the purpose of defense. What I want is an inventory of what else we have that could be used as weapons if necessary. In Thoradin, our people had a saying: ‘When there are enemies, look to the left sides of your tools.’ It means that every tool can serve as a weapon, if the one wielding it knows how to use it so.

“I also want the garrisons doubled. Set drum and flare stations at every mile of every cavern, warren, and way, so that we don’t have to wait on runners and flash-signals in case of emergency. I want daily drills of all fighting units and a reserve unit ready to back each regular unit.”

Barek Stone, captain general of forces, smiled his cold smile at that. Willen Ironmaul was talking his language.

“We made a wise choice, Olim,” Slide Tolec whispered to the prince of the Daewar. “This one takes charge when he has to, and he knows how to think like a warrior.”

Olim nodded vaguely and returned to his own frowning thoughts. How was anyone, he wondered, going to simply obliterate a tunnel that had taken the finest Daewar delvers ten years to create?

*

By the time Megistal had freed himself of his bonds and begun untying Sigamon, they were alone on the plateau above Sheercliff. The dwarves – the one called Damon and his companion, and the female who had joined them – were long gone. They had gone down the face of Sheercliff and into the rough breaks to the east. Had Megistal been able to cast a trace spell while they were still within sight, he would now know where they were. But with his hands bound and his mouth stifled, he had been unable to use ordinary magic. As for the kender female, she had just wandered off somewhere.

Now Sigamon sat up, pulled the gag from his mouth, and whimpered, rubbing his wrists. “That dwarf nearly killed me,” he whined. “Why didn’t you destroy him?”

“I came closer to that than you did.” Megistal turned away. “Fascinating,” he muttered to himself. “That dwarf could truly resist magic. He struggled against it and survived. I would never have thought that anyone could do that.”

“Stubborn,” Sigamon hissed. “Proud and stubborn and … and just plain selfish!”

“Selfish?” Megistal glanced at him.

“Of course, selfish! Magic is important! The channeling of magics – through the towers – is vital. Yet these dwarves have the effrontery to put their own interests ahead of the common good.”

“Oh.” Megistal shrugged. “Well, there is no need to worry about a Tower of High Sorcery here anymore. Without the Stone of Threes planted beneath its center, a tower would not respond to its occupants or know how to protect itself. It would be just another building. The Stone of Threes is the source of a tower’s life. And now the Stone of Threes is gone.”

“Then we’ll just have to get it back,” Sigamon snapped. “Where did they go with it?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Megistal said. He turned away again, talking mostly to himself. “Is that dwarf exceptional, or are they all resistant? And just how resistant are they? I would like to make a study of those dwarves. …”

“Study!” Sigamon scoffed. “You study, then, red-strap! I have better things to do.” Standing erect on long, awkward legs, the white-robe crossed his arms in front of himself, lowered his head, and chanted, “Degat tonin ot …” He hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I hate this spell,” he whined. “It always makes me nauseous. Degat tonin ot tonosos! Chapak!”

Where he stood, the air shimmered, and abruptly he was gone. Megistal shook his head. To resort to a transport spell, the wizard must have been truly upset, because, wherever he was now, he was certainly upset as a result of it. Transport spells were hard on the strongest of stomachs, and Sigamon’s was not very strong.

Muttering to himself, Megistal gathered up a few supplies, put them into a pack, and stepped to the edge of the cliff. He paused, noticing movement in the distance, and conjured a viewing ring. When the image was clear, he frowned. It wasn’t the dwarves. There was no sign of them. The image in the view-ring was only a man – a plains barbarian of some kind, riding a horse.

But it occurred to the wizard that a horse might be a useful thing. Traveling by horse was faster than traveling by foot and was far more pleasant than a transport spell. Casually, the wizard pointed a finger at the image in the ring and muttered an incantation. Both the horse and the man seemed to freeze where they were and remained motionless. Megistal hoisted his pack and stepped off the edge of the cliff. With simple levitation he lowered himself to the ground below and set off eastward, toward where his horse awaited him.

Let Sigamon and those who followed worry about the Stone of Threes and the building of towers, he decided. A hundred and twenty wizards – a hundred and twenty-one, counting Sigamon – would certainly be enough to find the stone, recover it from the dwarves, and get on with the project. Megistal had found something more interesting to think about. He wanted to take a better look at this land of dwarves and at the people in it. He had come out from the first tower to take up higher studies of the magical arts. He believed – everyone he knew believed – that no sentient creature could resist the powers of magic without using magic to do so. Yet now, a simple dwarf had done just that.

When Megistal came to the place where the motionless rider sat on his motionless horse, the wizard waved his hand and muttered. The man was lifted from his saddle and dropped unceremoniously onto the stony ground. Megistal stepped up beside the animal, swung into its saddle, and released his freeze spell. Instantly, the horse took a step forward, then half-turned, looking around in confusion. Megistal gripped its reins and turned it, heading east. Behind him the fallen man scrambled to his feet, shouted, “Horse thief!” and set an arrow in his bow.

Megistal muttered, “Deme tosis.” The arrow humming toward him turned as though deflected by a shield and disappeared into high brush.

Megistal turned in the saddle. “Go away!” he shouted at the man running toward him. He mouthed another spell, and a tall tree appeared directly in the man’s path. The man ran into it and bounced off, sprawling on his back. The tree faded, and Megistal put heels to his mount. As the horse surged into a ground-eating run, Megistal told himself, “Well, magic worked just fine on him.”

Behind him, Quist Redfeather got to his feet, wiping blood from his face. Eyes as cold and angry as winter clouds looked after the receding mage. “A wizard,” the Cobar growled. “A horse-stealing wizard.”

Brushing himself off, he assembled his fallen weapons and turned to look westward – the direction he had been going. Then, with a fierce growl, he turned eastward again. His credentials from Xak Tsaroth were hidden between the leathers of the saddle on which the wizard now rode. Without them, he could not complete the mission the High Overlord had sent him on. Unless he could recover the little linen scroll with its seal, stamp, and marque of passage, there was no sense in going on.

Besides, Quist Redfeather was a horseman. He was a Cobar horseman. And the one insult that no Cobar could tolerate was for someone to steal his horse.

“Wizard or not,” he told himself, “that red-strapped thief is going to wish he had never seen me.”

He would never be able to catch the mage on foot, he knew. But the place where he had found the horse was not far away, and where that horse came from were two more. In all his years in the wild lands, Quist Redfeather had never encountered anyone or anything that he could not track, trail, and overtake with a good horse under him.

*

Inside Southgate, beyond Anvil’s Echo, the magma pit called the Shaft of Reorx was the center of intense, bustling activity – as it had been since the day of its first stoking several years before.

Here the delving dwarves, following plans laid out by the Hylar, had dug the deepest hole in all of Thorbardin. From the lowest floor of Gateway Hall, in the center of a wide concourse set with great foundries and hundreds of metalsmith shops, trade stalls, and manufactories of a hundred kinds, the shaft descended almost five thousand feet straight down, a circular hole thirty feet across at its top and ringed, eight hundred feet below the top, by a series of shaft caverns that housed immense smelters. At the bottom of the shaft, nearly a mile down, bright magma roiled and bubbled. It was not the natural magma that had been discovered beneath old Thorin, but dwarf-made magma, one of the greatest accomplishments of dwarven engineering in a hundred years. In building the shaft, the dwarves of Thorbardin had delved until they came to a stratum of stone that, once kindled and melted by intense heat, would sustain itself as magma for long periods.

The proper stone had been found halfway down. They knew by the taste of the stone, the taste of latent fires. It was not magma, but it could be made into magma – unlike the unsuccessful Shame of Reorx within Northgate, where no such strata were found. Carefully, and with great craft, the pit was ignited over a period of three years by focusing sunlight directly from the sun-tunnels above the great hall of audience, through a series of Hylar-crafted lenses. The largest of these lenses, an enormous glass convexity called the Temple of Stars because of the way it imaged the nighttime sky, was directly above the shaft.

Reignition once a year was adequate to keep the magma at the bottom of the shaft alive.

In a way, the Shaft of Reorx was the heart of Thorbardin. It powered all of the great smelters that converted ore – from the Daergar mines and from trade with the human orders of Ergoth – into the raw metals from which the goods of Thorbardin were made. In addition, the Shaft of Reorx was tapped by countless small tunnels and ducts to carry warm air throughout the underground realm. Every city in Thorbardin had a heat exchange, and all of them but one were fed from the Shaft of Reorx. Only the Hylar domain, Hybardin, standing above the center of the Urkhan Sea, could not be heated by the shaft. A main duct had been started, then stopped and sealed when the delvers discovered that its route was perilously close to the bottom of the Urkhan Sea. The Hylar heat exchange now was based on direct radiation through sun-tunnels in the peaks of Cloudseeker, mirror-concentrated on the Life Tree’s main reservoirs.

A side effect of this, which some considered a blessing and others a nuisance, was in the Hybardin tap system. Every city in Thorbardin now had a channeled water system managed by tapwardens under the direction of Talc Bendiron, the general tapwarden of Thorbardin. Intricate labyrinths of aqueducts, reservoirs, troughs, and drilled shafts made clean water available to every part of every city. But, in Hybardin, the water at the taps was always hot water.

Other Thorbardin dwarves had to heat their water to bathe. The Hylar had to cool their water to drink.

In addition to firing the smelters and warming the lodgings of Thorbardin, the Shaft of Reorx also powered the lift stages of the main vertical transport shafts. There were lift stages everywhere in Thorbardin, but most of them were hand-powered, using pulleys and winches. Each lift stage was a continuous belt of layered cable running between great pulleys in a closed shaft, with an open gate at each level of the city it served. Stages like flat shelves were attached to the belts at eight-foot intervals, and each stage could hold as many as nine dwarves or one ore cart. When the lifts were in operation, a person desiring to go from one level to another had simply to step aboard a passing stage, then step off when it passed the level he wanted.

The main transport shafts, though, were far too large for hand-winches. These were powered by steam, generated in water vats at the bottom of each shaft with heat ducted from the Shaft of Reorx and trapped beneath spring-release valves. The resulting action, to anyone but dwarves, would have seemed terrifying. At each gate of each lift – lifts three times the size of the ordinary stages – a metal floor would appear from below and rattle to a halt as the great coil springs in the depths forced the valves closed. For about a minute and a half, the big stage would remain in place, while those aboard it got off and those waiting got on, then as the steam beneath the valves reached critical peak, a whistle shrilled, the gate crashed shut, and the stage roared upward at great speed, to stop abruptly at the next level.

The downward stages, appearing at gates opposite the upward gates, were simply the other side of the up-lifts, on the downward course of the great cable-belt.

To the dwarves, it was an enormously logical and practical system for moving large groups or large objects from level to level. The fact that the crashing, roaring abruptness of the steam-fed lifts would be deadly to anyone just stepping on or off when the valves released was of little concern. The practical-natured dwarves simply did not step on or off after the whistle sounded.

With all of its uses, the Shaft of Reorx was, in most people’s opinion, the finest tool in Thorbardin. Yet now, when Willen Ironmaul’s order went out, to look to the left side of all the tools, it presented an enigma. Talc Bendiron, the tapwarden, was the first of the wardens to arrive beneath the Temple of Stars to study the matter and was pacing around the great hole, pausing now and then to lean precariously over its railing, when Cambit Steelsheath, warden of ways, came to join him. Within minutes they were both pacing, gaping, and scratching their heads. Bell Brightluster, warden of trade, and Gem Bluesleeve, warden of the watch, joined them there, and even Bardion Ledge – who as wastewarden had nothing to do with the great shaft – came to observe.

The regent demanded that every tool in Thorbardin have an alternate use – in emergency – as a weapon of defense. Yet the Shaft of Reorx, the greatest tool of all, offered no such use that they could think of. As one, the senior wardens of Thorbardin paced, peered, and pondered. Crouch Firesear, clerk of the council of wardens, followed after them with cove and slate. After a time Pelt Bezel, keeper of forges, and Smoke Lodestone, master of mines, joined them.

“The Hylar’s theory is just fine,” the Daergar overseer rumbled behind his slitted mask. “Anything that can serve as a tool should be able to serve as a weapon. But this? I don’t see how.”

“I don’t, either,” Bardion Ledge conceded. “It’s a hole. Granted, it is almost a mile deep and has live magma at its bottom, but still it is only a hole.”

“It is a tool, though,” Pelt Bezel insisted. “It heats the smelters, drives the transport shafts, and feeds the heat exchanges. What is that, if not a tool?”

“Tool, yes,” Cambit Steelsheath agreed, “but it’s still just a hole. How can a hole be used as a weapon?”

“Very effectively,” Bardion Ledge said, grinning, “if we can persuade our enemies to jump into it. But I don’t see that as a practical plan for general contingencies.”

A crowd had grown at the rail of the pit, but now those on the outside turned and backed away as a reeking odor reached their noses.

“’Scuse us,” a high-pitched voice requested.

The wardens turned and stared. Just behind them, twenty or more Aghar – the dim, coarse little people usually called gully dwarves – approached the rail. It was not so much a group as a sprawl of gully dwarves, tripping over one another, tumbling here and there but still managing to carry among them – more or less upright – a large, battered copper barrel, open at the top and reeking of stench.

The one in the lead, a ragged and disheveled little gray-beard named Blemish, was the Grand Notioner of the Aghar clan of Bulp. “’Scuse us,” he said again, more urgently. “Stand’side, please.”

As the wardens stepped aside, the gully dwarves carried their noisome vessel to the rail and emptied it into the Shaft of Reorx, almost losing the barrel itself in the process.

“Here, now!” Talc Bendiron snorted. “What are you doing? What is that?”

The little Grand Notioner looked around at him. “Huh?”

“What is that you dumped into the shaft?”

“Highbulp say clean th’ sewer tank.” Blemish shrugged. “That stuff from th’ tank.”

“Why did you dump it into the Shaft of Reorx?”

Blemish shrugged again, staring up at the much larger full dwarves around him. “Gotta …” He gulped and tried again. “Gotta put it someplace.”

“Not in the Shaft of Reorx!” Talc Bendiron roared. “Sewer waste goes to the waste process pits! You Aghar have a waste pit. Why didn’t you put it there?”

“Not usin’ pit for stuff like this anymore,” the little Grand Notioner explained. “Too good a place for rat huntin’ to mess it up with sewer stuff.”

“Reorx!” Talc Bendiron shook his head. “I thought I’d seen everything. But this …!”

Far below, the sludge from the Aghar sewers, falling toward the magma, began to vaporize in the heat of the pit. A distant roar echoed up the great shaft, and a small cloud of rancid steam wafted upward.

“So that’s what’s been happening to our heat ducts,” Cambit Steelsheath muttered. “Gris Bolen thought there was rot in the system somewhere.”

“I’m going to put a stop to this!” Bardion Ledge growled. Glaring at Blemish, he demanded, “Where is your chieftain?”

“Who?”

“Your leader! The Highbulp! What’s-his-name!”

“Oh, him.” Blemish shrugged. “Name’s Just th’ First. Dunno where he is, though. Highbulp gets lost a lot.”

Gem Bluesleeve had returned to the rail around the Shaft of Reorx and was looking over it thoughtfully. He had the glimmerings of an idea about how the shaft might be used as a weapon of defense. But before voicing it, he decided to talk it over with Willen Ironmaul first.

(Continued in Volume 4)